Poster #117 - Unique contributions of cognitive-linguistic skills to Chinese word reading in Hong Kong kindergartners

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Language, Communication

Integrative Statement

What skills emerge as most important for early Chinese word recognition? In the present study, we administered a wide-ranging test battery to explore this question. The battery included rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, orthographic awareness (measured via a Chinese character decision task) and visual perception. Participants were 322 Chinese kindergarteners in Hong Kong, with a mean age of 5.56 years (SD=0.46). To examine the unique contribution of each skill to Chinese word reading, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. In each regression equation, the control variables of age and IQ scores were entered first. In various models, we sought to determine the unique contributions of each variable in our test battery. Results were that all measures together accounted for 47.2% of the variance in Chinese word reading scores. After controlling for age and IQ, all other reading-related measures accounted for 30.7% additional variance in Chinese word reading scores (∆F(6, 313)=30.267, p＜.001). Individual analyses showed that rapid naming accounted for 1.0% (∆F(1, 313 )=5.811, p＜.05) of variance independent of the other variables. In addition, the phonological awareness variable accounted for 2.9% of variance in the model (∆F(1,313 )=17.243, p＜.001), and morphological awareness accounted for 2.3% of variance in word reading (∆F(1,313 )=5.564 p＜.001). Vocabulary knowledge explained a unique 1.5% of variance in the model (∆F(1,313)=8.656, p＜.01), and our measure of orthographic awareness explained 0.9%(∆F(1,313)=5.564, p＜.05) of additional variance in Chinese word reading. Each of these contributions were unique, after controlling for the contributions of age, IQ and other reading-related measures. These results highlight the critical roles of rapid naming, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and orthographic awareness in Chinese word reading in early readers.

Authors

• Catherine McBride, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author

• Yanyan Ye, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  Non-Presenting Author