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How Character Reading Can Be Different from Word Reading in Chinese and Why It Matters for Chinese Reading Development

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Reading Development and Difficulties in Monolingual and Bilingual Chinese Children

Part of the book series: Literacy Studies ((LITS,volume 8))

Abstract

Both characters and words in Chinese are related to meaning, and it is interesting to consider the ways in which children process the two. Both phonetic and semantic radicals are essential for character identification. At the same time, within multi-character words, the association(s) of each character to the other(s) are additionally important for children to master. Lexical compounding is a particularly salient aspect of this process. In this chapter, we will elaborate on how characters and words might be considered to be somewhat different Chinese acquisition processes for young children and the developmental association between the two. We will begin by distinguishing these two concepts and explaining why the concepts of “character” and “word” warrant unique focuses in Chinese. We will also highlight what is meant by “reading,” i.e., the inclusion of both oral recognition (i.e., just saying the character or word aloud) and understanding of meaning of the character or word and metalinguistic skills which are important for children’s character and word learning. Next, we will highlight research on the acquisition of each, with particular attention to orthographic structure in characters and the role of morphological awareness in words. We will conclude by addressing the relations among context, words, characters, and radicals in learning and development.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (project reference# 451210) for support of this research. Please address correspondences regarding this manuscript to Catherine McBride-Chang, Psychology Department, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong; Tel 852–26096576; Email: cmcbride@psy.cuhk.edu.hk.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    Tong Li

  2. Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong

    Catherine McBride-Chang

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  1. Tong Li
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  2. Catherine McBride-Chang
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Correspondence to Tong Li .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Applied Psych & Human Dev, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Xi Chen

  2. School of Teaching & Curric Leadership, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA

    Qiuying Wang

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Yang Cathy Luo

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Li, T., McBride-Chang, C. (2014). How Character Reading Can Be Different from Word Reading in Chinese and Why It Matters for Chinese Reading Development. In: Chen, X., Wang, Q., Luo, Y. (eds) Reading Development and Difficulties in Monolingual and Bilingual Chinese Children. Literacy Studies, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7380-6_3

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