A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS, VISUAL SKILLS, AND CHINESE READING ACQUISITION AMONG FIRST-GRADERS IN TAIWAN

Citation
Hs. Huang et Jr. Hanley, A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS, VISUAL SKILLS, AND CHINESE READING ACQUISITION AMONG FIRST-GRADERS IN TAIWAN, International journal of behavioral development, 20(2), 1997, pp. 249-268
Citations number
27
Categorie Soggetti
Psychology, Developmental
ISSN journal
01650254
Volume
20
Issue
2
Year of publication
1997
Pages
249 - 268
Database
ISI
SICI code
0165-0254(1997)20:2<249:ALOPAV>2.0.ZU;2-Q
Abstract
The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether a child's ph onological awareness and visual skills before instruction in school ha d any predictive power for later Chinese reading ability among 1st-gra ders in Taiwan. The study also examined the extent to which phonologic al awareness and visual skills varied in three separate testing sessio ns during the 1st grade. These testing sessions took place just before the children had learned the alphabetic system Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao, immedi ately after the children had learnt Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao, and, finally, at t he end of the first year of schooling. Forty 6-year-old Chinese childr en from Taiwan took part in the study. The test materials included a C hinese Characters Reading Test, a set of Phonological Awareness tests, a Visual Paired Associates learning test, and a vocabulary and IQ tes t. Phonological awareness at the first testing session was found to be significantly related to the ability to read Chinese characters at th e end of the first year. However, the predictive power of early phonol ogical awareness decreased markedly when the effects of preschool read ing scores were partialled out. Therefore, the study provided evidence that phonological processes are significantly related to success in t he first year of Chinese reading, but was unable to establish whether or not differences in phonological skills are a cause of differences i n the reading ability of Chinese children. In addition 10 weeks of ins truction in Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao led to an increase in performance on all te sts of phonological awareness. This is consistent with the view that l earning an alphabetic script improves phonological awareness ability.