Children’s stroke sequence errors in writing Chinese characters

Copying skills in relation to word reading and writing in Chinese children with and without dyslexia

“…Particularly in Hong Kong, where phonological awareness skills, traditionally the best indicators of reading difficulties (Vellutino et al, 2004), might not be as central for predicting reading impairment as in other societies (e.g., Chung et al, 2009;McBride-Chang et al, 2011) and where copying skills are an intricate aspect of all literacy learning (e.g., Chan et al, 2006;Law et al, 1998), copying skill itself should be explored further as an ability that might partially underpin Chinese reading and dictation acquisition. As Tan and colleagues (2005) noted, apart from phonological, semantic, and orthographic processing, reading skill also makes use of visual processing.…”

Orthographic skills important to Chinese literacy development: the role of radical representation and orthographic memory of radicals

“…Each character is made up of radicals (or bujians), which consist of different strokes arranged sequentially, and combined in different configurations in characters (Leong, Cheng, & Lam, 2000). There are eight basic types of strokes (Law, Ki, Chung, Ko, & Lam, 1998). The existence of recurring stroke-patterns in the form of radicals reduces the memory load in processing the orthographic information in characters by acting as a visual chunking tool and helps in the learning of about 4600-4900 commonly used Chinese characters (Cheung & Bauer, 2002;Lee, 2000).…”

Unpacking mundane practices: children's experiences of learning literacy at a Chinese complementary school in Scotland

“…Learning the Chinese script is to participate in deeply rooted historical and cultural practices including the rote learning and appreciation of classical texts (Lau, 2007); learning brush calligraphy and stroke order rules (Law et al, 1998); learning the pictographic origins of characters (Lee, 2008) and memorizing a vast number of complex character configurations (Shu and Anderson, 1999;McBride-Chang and Chen, 2003). Furthermore, this literary tradition still resonates with teachers and the acquisition of Chinese literacy is inextricably bound to philosophical and pedagogic approaches to teaching and learning in Confucius-heritage societies (Watkins and Biggs, 2001;Hu, 2002;Jin and Cortazzi, 2006).…”