Early prediction of reading development in Japanese hiragana and kanji: a longitudinal study from kindergarten to grade 1

Tanji, Takayuki; Inoue, Tomohiro

doi:10.1007/s11145-021-10197-8

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…We reiterate that the orthographic depth and breadth hypotheses posit that sound transparency and the number of symbols in a script may yield differences in cognitive skill associations with reading outcomes (Katz & Frost, 1992; Nag et al., 2014; Ziegler et al., 2010). Predictions from both of these hypotheses make sense in general for the Japanese language and have been investigated already to a degree (e.g., Inoue et al., 2017; Muroya et al., 2017; Tanji & Inoue, 2022). Typically, these associations are assumed to be consistent across all readers, what we deem as “rigid” orthographic hypotheses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is no surprise that with the direct sound‐to‐graph correspondence of hiragana comes with it a closer connection to phonological awareness (or mora awareness in Japanese), the ability to consciously access and manipulate sublexical phonological segments, compared to the fleeting sound rules exhibited in kanji (e.g., Inoue et al., 2017; Koyama et al., 2008; Ogino et al., 2017; Tanji & Inoue, 2022). However, the type of phonological ability can have a more decided influence on reading between both scripts.…”

Section: The Story Thus Far On Japanese Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As an example, the word 大学 is a combination of two morphemes, 大, which means “big,” and 学, which means “study.” They pair together to mean “university.” Because this is a reliable tool for constructing words in Japanese, it is no surprise that both vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness (the ability to reflect upon and manipulate morphemes and employ word formation rules in one's language; Kuo & Anderson, 2006) are highly predictive of kanji reading (Inoue et al., 2017; Muroya et al., 2017). Some studies have shown that morphological awareness exhibits slightly stronger associations in kanji than hiragana (e.g., Muroya et al., 2017; Tanji & Inoue, 2022). This makes sense to a degree, as the large inventory of characters in kanji may force readers to rely more on morpheme construction to aid in reading (Inoue et al., 2017, 2023).…”

Section: The Story Thus Far On Japanese Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Extrema of Japanese Literacy: Beyond the Bounds of Average Reading

Hemelstrand,

Inoue

2024

Reading Research Quarterly

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The unique orthographic complexities of Japanese, which utilizes multiple types of scripts (morphographic kanji and syllabic hiragana and katakana) for the same spoken language, place unique demands on early learners. Much research has centered on the average ability of Japanese readers, but given the varying challenges of these scripts, attention may need to be oriented towards the outer bounds of ability, specifically those who both deeply struggle (including dyslexia) and excel at reading. In this article, we provide a review of past research on Japanese literacy along with a pre‐registered analysis using quantile generalized additive models that tested two theories in cross‐language literacy research, the orthographic depth and breadth hypotheses. Our results confirmed that the relationships between cognitive skills (phonological awareness and morphological awareness) and reading outcomes differed by script (hiragana vs. kanji). However, their relationships varied in curvilinearity and associations seemed to change based on reading ability. These findings provide supporting evidence for the general scope of the orthographic depth and breadth hypotheses, but may ultimately question the uniformity of these theories.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Story Thus Far On Japanese Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Story Thus Far On Japanese Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Extrema of Japanese Literacy: Beyond the Bounds of Average Reading

Hemelstrand,

Inoue

2024

Reading Research Quarterly

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“…The Hiragana nonword decoding task ( Tanji and Inoue, 2022 ) was used. The task consisted of 15 four-character Hiragana nonwords.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Hiragana word reading fluency task ( Inoue et al, 2020a ; Tanji and Inoue, 2022 ) was used. The task comprised 104 four-character Hiragana words taken from Grade 1 textbooks.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Home literacy environment and early reading skills in Japanese Hiragana and Kanji during the transition from kindergarten to primary school

Tanji

Inoue

2023

Front. Psychol.

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We examined the reciprocal associations between home literacy environment (HLE) and children’s early reading skills in syllabic Hiragana and morphographic Kanji in a sample of Japanese parent–child dyads. Eighty-three children were followed from kindergarten to Grade 3 and tested on Hiragana reading accuracy in kindergarten, Hiragana word reading fluency in kindergarten and Grade 1, and Kanji reading accuracy in Grade 1 to Grade 3. Their parents answered a questionnaire about HLE [parent teaching (PT) in Hiragana and Kanji, shared book reading (SBR), and access to literacy resources (ALR)], parents’ needs for early literacy support by teachers, parents’ expectations for children’s reading skills, parents’ worry about children’s homework, and mother’s education level. Results showed first that ALR, but not PT and SBR, was associated with reading skills in Hiragana and Kanji. Second, whereas Hiragana reading in kindergarten was not associated with PT in Hiragana in kindergarten, it negatively predicted PT in Hiragana in Grade 1. However, Kanji reading accuracy was not associated with PT in Kanji across Grades 1 to 3. Third, parents’ worry was negatively associated with children’s reading performance across Grades 1 to 3 but positively associated with PT in Hiragana and Kanji. Finally, while parents’ expectations were positively associated with children’s reading performance across Grades 1 to 3, they were negatively associated with PT in Hiragana and Kanji in Grades 1 and 2. These results suggest that Japanese parents may be sensitive to both their children’s reading performance and social expectations for school achievement and adjust their involvement accordingly during the transition period from kindergarten to early primary grades. ALR may be associated with early reading development in both Hiragana and Kanji.

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From Hand to Eye: a Meta-Analysis of the Benefit from Handwriting Training in Visual Graph Recognition

2022

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Handwriting (HW) training seems to boost recognition of visual graphs and learning to read more than other learning experiences. However, effects across studies appear to be variable and the underlying cognitive mechanism has been elusive. We thus conducted a meta-analysis on 50 independent experiments (with 1525 participants) to determine the magnitude of this HW benefit in visual graph recognition, while enlightening the underlying cognitive mechanism, by investigating four types of moderators: training program (type of control training, presence/absence of phonological training, and HW tasks adopted); set size and training regime (duration and frequency of session and total amount of training); granularity of visual discrimination and perceptual learning tasks; and age of participants.The benefit from HW training was moderate-to-large and significant (Hedge's g = 0.58, SE = .09) and was also modulated by type of control training (larger relative to motor, g = 0.78, than to visual control, g = 0.37), phonological training (larger when it was absent, g = 0.79, than present, g = 0.47), and granularity of visual discrimination (larger for fine-grained, g = 0.93, than coarse-grained, g = 0.19). These results are consistent with symbolic accounts that hold that the advantage from HW training in visual graph recognition is about perceptual learning rather than the motor act. Multiple meta-regressions also revealed that training regime moderated the HW benefit. We conclude that HW training is effective to improve visual graph recognition, and hence, is still relevant for literacy instruction in the present digital era.

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Early prediction of reading development in Japanese hiragana and kanji: a longitudinal study from kindergarten to grade 1

Cited by 5 publications

References 48 publications

The Extrema of Japanese Literacy: Beyond the Bounds of Average Reading

The Extrema of Japanese Literacy: Beyond the Bounds of Average Reading

Home literacy environment and early reading skills in Japanese Hiragana and Kanji during the transition from kindergarten to primary school

From Hand to Eye: a Meta-Analysis of the Benefit from Handwriting Training in Visual Graph Recognition

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