Explicit instruction in orthographic structure and word morphology helps Chinese children learn to write characters

Abstract

Previous research in alphabetic languages had shown that children learning to write are sensitive to morphological information, and that it serves as a resource that they draw upon as they acquire writing skills. In Chinese as well, sensitivity to morphological and orthographic information had been found to predict children's ability to read characters. The present study investigated whether raising children's awareness of the morphemic and orthographic structure of Chinese words would lead to beneficial results in their learning to write Chinese. An experimental group of 144 first graders from two primary schools in Beijing, China were given instruction designed to increase their knowledge of the orthographic and morphological structure of Chinese words. After two semesters, the experimental group's ability to copy Chinese characters and to write them from memory were both found to be significantly better than a control group. Theoretical implications are discussed, including how writing benefits from the types of linguistic knowledge that underlie lexical storage and retrieval in reading and speech. Educational implications are also discussed, such as how drawing children's attention to the morphemic components of Chinese words and the systematic features of Chinese orthography provides them with multiple sources of information they may utilize in learning to write.

The role of lexical knowledge and related linguistic components in typical and poor language comprehenders of Chinese

“…These errors can be minimized and the quantity and precision of derived words can be increased with appropriate training in orthographic and morphological structure of Chinese words. The study by Packard et al (2006) carried out with Chinese first graders has shown the beneficial effect of explicit training in morpheme discrimination and morpheme transfer on Chinese character writing.…”

Writing strengthens orthography and alphabetic-coding strengthens phonology in learning to read Chinese.

“…As Packard et al (2006) observed, reading and writing might be associated without having a causal relationship, instead linked through some third variable, such as cognitive ability (e.g., orthographic knowledge, phonological memory, etc. ), which affects both skills independently.…”

Reading and Spelling Chinese Among Beginning Readers: What Skills Make a Difference?

“…A series of studies conducted in Mainland China and Hong Kong showed that children's morphological awareness, including the ability to distinguish among meanings of homophones and morpheme construction skills, contributed significant amount of unique variance to Chinese word reading, word spelling and reading comprehension over and above phonological processing skills (McBride-Chang et al, 2003;Shu et al, 2006). Moreover, explicit instruction in the morphological structure of Chinese words was effective in enhancing children's ability to write characters (Packard et al, 2006).…”