The role of metalinguistic awareness and character properties in early Chinese reading

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8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this study, we examined the effects of phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness (MA), two character properties (family size [i.e., the number of words that contain the character] and frequency), and the interactions between the metalinguistic awareness (i.e., PA and MA) and the character properties on character reading in early Chinese readers. In total, 206 kindergarten children from China (118 from Mainland China and 88 from Hong Kong) were tracked from the second year of kindergarten to the third year. The linear mixed-effects models revealed significant main effects of metalinguistic awareness and character properties and significant interaction effects between these two, especially for the children from Mainland China. Specifically, the interaction effects indicated that early Chinese readers were able to use metalinguistic awareness more when reading the characters with more favorable properties (i.e., large family sizes and high frequencies). The results suggest a synergistic relationship between metalinguistic awareness and character properties for character learning in early Chinese readers. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Original languageEnglish
Article number105185
JournalJournal of Experimental Child Psychology
Volume210
Early online dateJun 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2021

Citation

Wang, L., Wang, J., Liu, D., & Lin, D. (2021). The role of metalinguistic awareness and character properties in early Chinese reading. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 210. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105185

Keywords

  • Chinese reading
  • Morphological awareness
  • Family size
  • Phonological awareness
  • Early readers
  • Linear mixed-effects model
  • PG student publication

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