Growth of orthography-phonology knowledge in Chinese writing system

Shu Hua, Ph.D.
State Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China　

Abstract:
Experimental studies have indicated that children's knowledge of linkage between orthography and phonology forms the foundation of reading acquisition. Chinese is a non-alphabetic writing system. It has been assumed, for a long time, that children acquire Chinese characters by rote memorization. Recent studies have provided the strong experimental evidence that an understanding of the nature of the correspondence between sound and print is crucial in acquisition of Chinese characters. The present talk summarized a series of studies on the development of orthography-phonology knowledge of Chinese children, including experimental, corpus and simulation studies. The research revealed that children are able to apply their knowledge of sublexical relations between orthography and phonology to generate a reading response to an unfamiliar compound character. Their awareness of phonetic regularity and consistency develops with grade. The statistical properties of orthography and children's print character experience are important in children's OPC knowledge development. The corpus analysis suggests that written Chinese has a logic that children can understand and use. The roles of regularity, consistency, frequency, and their interactions in children's acquisition of Chinese characters are simulated by computational model.