Early Reading Development in Chinese-speaking Children with Hearing Loss

Abstract

This study aims to explore early reading comprehension in Chinese-speaking children with hearing loss (HL) by examining character recognition and linguistic comprehension. Twenty-five children with HL received three measures relevant to character reading: phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness (MA), and character recognition; two linguistic-comprehension measures: receptive vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension; and one reading comprehension measure. Three demographic variables pertinent to children with HL were also taken into account. The results showed that the degree of HL was significantly related to reading comprehension, receptive vocabulary knowledge, and listening comprehension, the latter two of which were further correlated with the type of hearing device; however, the hearing age was associated with neither of the measures. MA made a unique contribution to character reading in the presence of PA, but the reverse was not true. Linguistic comprehension significantly accounted for additional variance in reading comprehension over and above character recognition but not vice versa. A further analysis controlling for character recognition revealed that receptive vocabulary knowledge was more contributive to early reading comprehension than was listening comprehension. The results of the current investigation have potential to inform educational practice in teaching and/or intervening Chinese children with HL regarding their reading skills.

Differences and Similarities in the Contributions of Phonological Awareness, Orthographic Knowledge and Semantic Competence to Reading Fluency in Chinese School-Age Children With and Without Hearing Loss

“…A very limited number of studies on reading of children with HL in the non-alphabetic Chinese writing system also revealed inconsistent results. For example, Ching and Nunes (2015) reported significant contribution of PA (lexical tone awareness) to word recognition accuracy in Chinese-speaking children with HL aged 7-12 years, whereas Chan and Yang (2018) found that PA (onset awareness and rime awareness) did not make a unique contribution to the amount of recognized Chinese characters in children with HL of grade 2. In a recent study by Zhao et al (2019), unique contribution of phonological awareness (onset awareness) to Chinese sentence reading fluency was found for children with HL of grades 5-6.…”

“…For example, in alphabetic writing systems, Connor and Zwolan (2004) found that vocabulary growth had a positive effect on passage comprehension in primary and middle school children with CIs and Von Muenster and Baker (2014) reported strong correlations between receptive/expressive language skills and passage reading comprehension in children with CIs aged 5-13 years. In non-alphabetic writing system, Ching and Nunes (2015) and Chan and Yang (2018) found that morphological awareness significantly predicted Chinese word recognition in primary school children with HL. Listening comprehension and receptive vocabulary knowledge also contributed significantly to early development of reading comprehension (Chan and Yang, 2018).…”

“…In non-alphabetic writing system, Ching and Nunes (2015) and Chan and Yang (2018) found that morphological awareness significantly predicted Chinese word recognition in primary school children with HL. Listening comprehension and receptive vocabulary knowledge also contributed significantly to early development of reading comprehension (Chan and Yang, 2018).…”

“…There are large variations in reading outcomes among the children with HL, and some children's reading ability is even above the average grade level of their normal-hearing peers (Geers, 2003;Vermeulen et al, 2007;Geers et al, 2008). Many previous studies intended to improve reading instructions for children with HL have identified factors that contribute to reading achievements, among which phonological awareness (PA), orthographic knowledge (OK), and semantic competence (SC) are the main linguistic skills (Dillon et al, 2012;Von Muenster and Baker, 2014;Chan and Yang, 2018;Wass et al, 2019;Ingvalson et al, 2020).…”

Morphological awareness and DHH students’ reading-related abilities: A meta-analysis of correlations

“…As a result of the eligibility check and with duplicates removed, eight articles were identified, including Berthiaume and Daigle (2014), Chan and Yang (2018), Ching and Nunes (2015), Kelly and Gaustad (2007), López-Higes et al (2015), Nielsen et al (2016), Sun et al (2022), and Wang et al (2017). Additionally, three dissertations were identified, including AlMusawi (2014), Chen (2005), and Falk (2017).…”