The development of Chinese character reading and knowledge in young children

2021 ◽  
pp. 251385022110256
Author(s):  
Li Zhang ◽  
Jing Zhou ◽  
Simin Cao

Early reading and literacy are critical for helping children to become good readers, and character reading and knowledge are important aspects. However, few studies have investigated this issue. By drawing on 127 children between 4 and 6 years of age from five Level 1 kindergartens in Shanghai, this study examined the development of Chinese character reading and knowledge in young children. Character reading was assessed using the revised Chinese Communicative Development Inventory. Children’s knowledge of Chinese characters was administered through three tasks, namely stroke-pattern recognition, visual memorization and component detection, and component positioning. Results indicated that children acquired some characters before formally learning to read and write. Both character reading and knowledge developed rapidly with age. Further, children’s knowledge of Chinese characters was closely associated with their character reading. Findings suggest that children’s interest and knowledge of characters should be fostered during the early years to prepare them to be successful readers.

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHUNG-HUI HSUAN ◽  
HENRY J. TSAI ◽  
RHONA STAINTHORP

ABSTRACTThe role of phonological and orthographic awareness on Chinese character reading from Grade 1 to 2 was investigated with 112 Taiwanese children. Phonological awareness (onset, rime, and tone), rudimentary orthographic awareness (character configuration and structure knowledge), and character reading were assessed in each grade. The strategy of learning to read novel characters using regular or sophisticated orthography-to-phonology correspondence rules or character mapping was tested in Grade 2. Our results suggested that (a) phonological and orthographic awarenesses are important in Grade 1, and tone awareness in Grade 1 uniquely predicts character reading in Grade 2; and (b) the use of sophisticated orthography-to-phonology correspondence rules and mapping strategy are crucial for character reading in Grades 1 and 2. In addition, phonological and rudimentary orthographic awarenesses are important for using sophisticated orthographic strategy when learning to read novel characters.


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
YING WANG ◽  
CATHERINE MCBRIDE

ABSTRACTWe considered the extent to which learning to read Chinese characters and Chinese words (operationally defined as composed of two or more characters) are different in the present study. Study 1 compared reading of the same characters in isolation and those in the context of known words for 63 Chinese third-year kindergarteners. Results showed that children performed significantly better on reading the same characters when embedded within words than when alone. Study 2 further examined the correlates of single-character reading and two-character word reading for 142 Chinese third-year kindergarteners. Despite a high correlation between character reading and word reading, unique correlates emerged. Orthographic awareness, rapid automatized naming, and Pinyin letter-name knowledge independently explained variance in both character and word reading; however, orthographic awareness explained unique variance in character reading even after statistically controlling for word reading. Whereas orthographic and Pinyin knowledge may be more strongly associated with character recognition, other skills may be more important for learning to read words. Character and word reading may constitute slightly different processes, with somewhat different educational implications for each.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1476718X2110149
Author(s):  
Susan Edwards

Young children aged birth to 5 years are known users of the internet, both unsupervised and in collaboration with adults. Adults also use the internet to share details of children’s lives with others, via sharenting and educational apps. During COVID-19 internet use by children and families rose significantly during periods of enforced stay-home. Internet use by children, and by adults on behalf exposes children to conduct, contact and content risks online. These risks mean that cyber-safety in the early years is increasingly necessary, especially concerning increased internet usage during COVID-19. While cyber-safety is well developed for primary and secondary-school aged children this is not the case for young children, their families and educators. This paper proposes a research agenda for cyber-safety in the early years, using critical constructivism and internet studies to define the internet as a non-unitary technology. Three main objects of study concerning cyber-safety in the early years, including the reference to COVID-19 are identified for targeted research, including: technologies, context and policy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-51
Author(s):  
Jeong-A Jo

This study aims to examine the common features and differences in how the Chinese-character classifier ‘ ben 本’ is used in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, and will explore the factors that have affected the categorization processes and patterns of the classifier ‘ ben 本.’ Consideration of the differences in the patterns of usage and categorization of the same Chinese classifier in different languages enables us to look into the perception of the world and the socio cultural differences inherent in each language, the differences in the perception of Chinese characters, and the relationship between classifiers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-153
Author(s):  
Jeong Yeon Sil ◽  
Jang Eun Young ◽  
Park Heung Soo

This study examines why and how Chinese characters spread into Korea. It subsequently conducts a comparative analysis of Korean and Chinese children’s textbooks with a focus on Yu Hap from the perspective of the acceptance and acculturation of Chinese characters. It also explores how commonly used the characters in Yu Hap are, and the text’s learning value as one of Korea’s children’s textbooks. Yu Hap is very significant as the first written language textbook published in Korea. A comparative analysis of the characters used in four children’s books published in Korea found that the characters in Yu Hap are very common, and the text has a high learning value. Approximately 50% of the characters in San Bai Qian and Yu Hap are the same, showing that both China and Korea had similar perceptions of the characters in common use. A very significant proportion of characters overlap in Basic Chinese Character for Educational Use, List of Common Words in Modern Chinese, and Yu Hap; this supports the idea that the same characters have continued to be used from ancient times to the present day.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 624
Author(s):  
In-su Jo ◽  
Dong-bin Choi ◽  
Young B. Park

Chinese characters in ancient books have many corrupted characters, and there are cases in which objects are mixed in the process of extracting the characters into images. To use this incomplete image as accurate data, we use image completion technology, which removes unnecessary objects and restores corrupted images. In this paper, we propose a variational autoencoder with classification (VAE-C) model. This model is characterized by using classification areas and a class activation map (CAM). Through the classification area, the data distribution is disentangled, and then the node to be adjusted is tracked using CAM. Through the latent variable, with which the determined node value is reduced, an image from which unnecessary objects have been removed is created. The VAE-C model can be utilized not only to eliminate unnecessary objects but also to restore corrupted images. By comparing the performance of removing unnecessary objects with mask regions with convolutional neural networks (Mask R-CNN), one of the prevalent object detection technologies, and also comparing the image restoration performance with the partial convolution model (PConv) and the gated convolution model (GConv), which are image inpainting technologies, our model is proven to perform excellently in terms of removing objects and restoring corrupted areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-279
Author(s):  
Rui Guo

The intelligent recognition tool for bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasties—the “Shang Zhou Bronze Inscriptions Intelligent Mirror”—was successfully invented in Shanghai. This mirror, based on the computer technology of artificial intelligence (AI) image recognition and image retrieval, succeeds in automagical recognition of bronze inscriptions, both single letters and full texts. This research leads the trend of the AI recognition of Ancient Chinese characters and accumulates valuable experience for the development of inter-disciplinary research on Chinese character recognition. This essay emphasizes the importance of the bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasty database in the AI recognition of bronze inscriptions, introduces the functional components of this tool, and shares the whole research process in order to offer experience for the related research on AI recognition of other types of Ancient Chinese characters as well as ideographs in the world scope. “Shang Zhou Bronze Inscriptions Intelligent Mirror” as a tool for bronze inscription recognition also has room for improvement and support, and guidance from experts in similar areas is greatly welcomed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 251385022098177
Author(s):  
Jeong-A Jo

This study aims to examine the common features and differences in how the Chinese-character classifier ‘ ben 本’ is used in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, and will explore the factors that have affected the categorization processes and patterns of the classifier ‘ ben 本.’ Consideration of the differences in the patterns of usage and categorization of the same Chinese classifier in different languages enables us to look into the perception of the world and the socio cultural differences inherent in each language, the differences in the perception of Chinese characters, and the relationship between classifiers.


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