The development of Chinese character reading and knowledge in young children

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.

Effects of Phonological Consistency and Semantic Radical Combinability on N170 and P200 in the Reading of Chinese Phonograms

Studies have suggested that visually presented words are obligatorily decomposed into constituents that could be mapped to language representations. The present study aims to elucidate how orthographic processing of one constituent affects the other and vice versa during a word recognition task. Chinese orthographic system has characters representing syllables and meanings instead of suffixation roles, and the majority of Chinese characters are phonograms that can be further decomposed into phonetic radical and semantic radical. We propose that semantic radical combinability indexed by semantic radicals and the effect of phonological consistency indexed by phonetic radicals would interact with each other during the reading of Chinese phonograms. Twenty-six right-handed native Chinese speakers were recruited to the study. Participants were presented with phonograms divided into four conditions following their semantic radical combinability (large vs. small) and phonological consistency (high vs. low). EEG signals were recorded throughout the covert naming task. Our results show that there is an interaction effect between phonological consistency and semantic radical combinability on the right hemisphere N170 activity while reading phonograms. Semantic radical combinability influenced the right hemisphere N170 during the process of low-consistency character reading but not high-consistency character reading. On the other hand, the left hemisphere N170 revealed a more significant activity during reading high-consistency characters and was not affected by radical combinability. In addition, while low-consistency characters revealed a larger P200 than high-consistency characters, the semantic radical combinability effect on P200 was only significant when participants were reading high-consistency characters but not low-consistency characters. These results provide new information about how ERPs are involved in word recognition within the context of interaction among orthographic and phonological dimensions.

Peran Budaya Literasi dalam Pembentukan Karakter Religius Anak di Kampoeng Batja Patrang Jember

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mendeskripsikan peran budaya literasi dalam pembentukan karakter religius anak di Kampoeng Batja Patrang Jember. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif deskriptif dengan jenis fenomenologi. Pengumpulan data dalam penelitian ini menggunakan teknik observasi, wawancara dan dokumentasi. Analisis datanya menggunakan analisis interaktuf model Miles, Huberman dan Saldana yaitu pengumpulan data, kondensai data, penyajian data, penarikan kesimpulan/verifikasi. Untuk menguji keabsahan data yang diperoleh, peneliti menggunakan triangulasi sumber dan triangulasi teknik. Hasil penelitian ini adalah (1) Karakter membaca yang terbentuk melaui budaya literasi yang telah diterapkan di Kampoeng Batjaadalah karakter membaca reseptif, reflektif, skimming dan scanning (2) Budaya literasi di Kampoeng Batjadapat membentuk karakter menulis cerita, menulis ayat-ayat Al-quran, menulis kaligrafi, menulis sinopsis, menulis pantun, kegiatan tersebut dilaksanakan dengan bernuansa keagamaan (3) Karakter berbicara yang terbentuk melaui budaya literasi yang telah diterapkan di Kampoeng Batjaadalah karakter berbicara di depan publik dan berbicara interpersonal. Kata Kunci: budaya literasi, karakter religius The purpose of this study is to describe the role of literacy culture in the creation of the child's religious character in kampoeng batja patrang jember. The study uses a descriptive qualitative approach with a type of phenomenon. Data collection in this study uses observation techniques, interviews and documentation. The data analysis uses miles's and huberman and saldana analysis for data collection, data condenser, data presentation, deduction/verification. To test the validity of the acquired data, researchers used source triangulation and technical triangulation. The study is (1) the character reading through the literated cultures already applied in kampoeng batjais the character of prescriptive, reflective, skimming and scanning (2) of the literated cultures in the kampoeng batjadat forming the character of storywriting, writing of the quran, writing calligraphy, writing synopsis, poetry, The activity was carried out in a religious (3) speaking character through literacy cultures already adopted in kampoeng batjais a public speaking and interpersonal speech.

The Relationship Between Orthographic Awareness and Chinese Reading in Hong Kong’s Young CSL Learners

Purpose: This study investigates young Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners’ Chinese character reading performance and its relationship with their orthographic awareness. There is a pressing need to gain a better understanding of Hong Kong’s ethnic minority students’ CSL acquisition, so that more effective instruction can be provided. Design/Approach/Methods: A total of 157 Hong Kong ethnic minority CSL students in Grade 4 were evaluated using a range of assessments: orthographic awareness in identifying and utilizing character components, listening comprehension for vocabulary terms and short texts, and reading Chinese character lists with single- and two-character words. Findings: The students performed consistently across the two lists but made fewer errors when reading the two-character word list, most of which were orthographical. Multiple regression analysis showed that the students’ orthographic awareness contributed significantly to their character reading. Originality/Value: The findings suggest that orthographic awareness can help ethnic minority CSL learners improve their Chinese character reading skills. Chinese classes provided for such students, and for CSL learners in general, should place greater focus on literacy training.