Reading fluency as the bridge between decoding and reading comprehension in Chinese children.

Purpose: Reading fluency has been considered an essential component of reading comprehension, but it is yet to be examined in a reading model in a non-alphabetic writing system. This study investigated whether reading fluency could be identified as a separate construct from decoding and examined the unique role of reading fluency in the Simple View of Reading (SVR).

Method: A total of 342 Cantonese-speaking Chinese children in grades 3-5 were recruited to participate in the study.

Predicting the developmental trajectories of Chinese reading, English reading, and mathematics: Evidence from Hong Kong Chinese children.

We examined the developmental trajectories and cognitive predictors of first language Chinese reading, second language English reading, and mathematics skills in Hong Kong children in Grades 1-5. We used longitudinal data of 1,000 children ( = 7.59 years) assessed on phonological awareness, rapid naming, and morphological awareness in Grade 1 and Chinese word reading, English word reading, and arithmetic calculations in Grades 1-5.

Executive functions in Chinese kindergarten children with early reading problems.

Learning to read Chinese is a complex task that draws on a range of executive function (EF) skills since early development. However, no studies have examined EF as a potential contributing factor to early reading problems among Chinese children. The present longitudinal study identified 48 poor readers and 48 normal readers among a sample of 190 Chinese children at the end of kindergarten.

Exploring the Genetic and Environmental Etiologies of Phonological Awareness, Morphological Awareness, and Vocabulary Among Chinese-English Bilingual Children: The Moderating Role of Second Language Instruction.

This study investigated the associations among bilingual phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and vocabulary by focusing on their genetic and environmental etiologies. It also explored the influence of family socio-economic status (SES) and language exposure amount on the genetic and environmental effects. A twin study was conducted with 349 pairs of Chinese-English bilingual twins (mean age = 7.

Resting state EEG network modularity predicts literacy skills in L1 Chinese but not in L2 English.

EEG network modularity, as a proxy for cognitive plasticity, has been proposed to be a more reliable neural marker than power and coherence in predicting learning outcomes. The present study examined the associations between resting state EEG network modularity and both L1 Chinese and L2 English literacy skills among 90 Hong Kong first to fifth graders. The modularity indices of different frequency bands were highly correlated with one another.

Reciprocal effects of morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and word reading: A cross-lagged panel analysis in Chinese.

There are strong correspondences among syllable, morpheme, and orthographic representations in Chinese. For this reason, bidirectional relationships have been hypothesized among morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and word reading from an early age. Our study examined the reciprocity of these skills among Hong Kong Chinese primary school children.

Effect of Twinning on Chinese and English Vocabulary Knowledge.

Vocabulary knowledge was tested in a native (Cantonese-Chinese) and foreign (English) language in 150 twins and 150 singletons aged 6-11 years, matched on age, gender, grade level, nonverbal intelligence, parents' education, family income, and number of siblings and household members. The singletons clearly outperformed the twins on the native vocabulary, but this "twinning effect" was much less noticeable for the foreign vocabulary. The effect on English vocabulary was further reduced after exposure to English at home was controlled.

Prevalence and heritability of handedness in a Hong Kong Chinese twin and singleton sample.

Background: Left-handedness prevalence has been consistently reported at around 10% with heritability estimates at around 25%. Higher left-handedness prevalence has been reported in males and in twins. Lower prevalence has been reported in Asia, but it remains unclear whether this is due to biological or cultural factors.

Event-related potentials during Chinese single-character and two-character word reading in children.

Word reading involves a series of cognitive processes, from lower-level visual processing to word semantic retrieval. To investigate the timing of the underlying neurocognitive processes in reading, the current study examined the electrophysiological correlates of cognitive functions associated with traditional Chinese word reading in Hong Kong children (Age: M = 8.19, SD = 0.

Home environmental influences on children's language and reading skills in a genetically sensitive design: Are socioeconomic status and home literacy environment environmental mediators and moderators?

This twin study examined how family socioeconomic status (SES) and home literacy environment (HLE) contributes to Chinese language and reading skills. It included 312 Chinese twin pairs aged 3 to 11. Children were individually administered tasks of Chinese word reading, receptive vocabulary and reading-related cognitive skills, and nonverbal reasoning ability.

Reading Comprehension Difficulties in Chinese-English Bilingual Children.

The co-occurrence of reading comprehension difficulties for first language (L1) Chinese and second language (L2) English and associated longitudinal cognitive-linguistic correlates in each language were investigated. Sixteen poor comprehenders in English and 16 poor comprehenders in Chinese, 18 poor readers in both, and 18 children with normal performance in both were identified at age 10. The prevalence rate for being poor in both was 52.

Less is More in Hong Kong: Investigation of Biscriptal and Trilingual Development Among Chinese Twins in a (Relatively) Small City.

One salient characteristic of twin studies and the related behavioral genetics paradigm is the requirement of a large sample size. Countries or regions that are large in size and highly populated are at an advantage when implementing twin studies. However, given the fascinating and promising results obtained from twin studies, many researchers based in smaller countries or regions may still want to conduct twin studies in order to address local and theoretical issues.

Adequacy of Using a Three-Item Questionnaire to Determine Zygosity in Chinese Young Twins.

The present study examined the adequacy of a three-item parent questionnaire in determining the zygosity of young Chinese twins and whether there was any association between parent response accuracy and some demographic variables. The sample consisted of 334 pairs of same-sex Chinese twins aged from 3 to 11 years. Three scoring methods, namely the summed score, logistic regression, and decision tree, were employed to evaluate parent response accuracy of twin zygosity based on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) information.

Understanding the Microstructure and Macrostructure of Passages Among Chinese Elementary School Children.

Understanding the microstructure and macrostructure of passages is important for reading comprehension. What cognitive-linguistic skills may contribute to understanding these two levels of structures has rarely been investigated. The present study examined whether some word-level and text-level cognitive-linguistic skills may contribute differently to the understanding of microstructure and macrostructure respectively.

Coarse and fine N1 tuning for print in younger and older Chinese children: Orthography, phonology, or semantics driven?

Visual expertise in distinguishing words from objects and word-like stimuli is a fundamental skill that is important for children to become proficient readers. This expertise can be indexed by the N1 component of ERPs at the neural level. However, the nature of N1 tuning for print is controversial in terms of onset of the latency, lateralization and the neural mechanism of the N1.

Risk-taking propensity and sensitivity to punishment in adolescents with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder symptoms and/or reading disability.

Many studies reported that adolescents with ADHD/RD more frequently engage in risk-taking behaviors. Very few have examined their risk taking patterns and the impact of their comorbidity. The present study compared the risk-taking propensity, sensitivity to punishment and delinquency outcome in Chinese adolescents with ADHD symptoms (AS) and/or RD using a simulated risk task, the Balloon Analogous Risk Task (BART).

A common haplotype of KIAA0319 contributes to the phonological awareness skill in Chinese children.

Background: Previous studies have shown that KIAA0319 is a candidate gene for dyslexia in western populations. In view of the different languages used in Caucasian and Chinese populations, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether there is also an association of KIAA0319 in Chinese children with dyslexia and/or to the language-related cognitive skills.

Method And Results: A total of twenty six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped from three hundred and ninety three individuals from 131 Chinese families.

What are the early indicators of persistent word reading difficulties among Chinese readers in elementary grades?

To identify the indicators of persistent reading difficulties among Chinese readers in early elementary grades, the performance of three groups of Chinese children with different reading trajectories ('persistent poor word readers', 'improved poor word readers' and 'skilled word readers') in reading-related measures was analysed in a 3-year longitudinal study. The three groups were classified according to their performance in a standardized Chinese word reading test in Grade 1 and Grade 4. Results of analysis of variance and logistic regression on the reading-related measures revealed that rapid naming and syntactic skills were important indicators of early word reading difficulty.

Weaknesses in semantic, syntactic and oral language expression contribute to reading difficulties in Chinese dyslexic children.

The present study examined the role of weaknesses in some language skills for the reading difficulties among Chinese dyslexic children. Thirty Chinese dyslexic children were compared with 30 chronological age (CA) controls and 30 reading-level (RL) controls on a number of language and reading measures. The results showed that Chinese dyslexic children performed significantly worse than the CA controls but similarly to the RL controls in many of the linguistic measures except that the dyslexic group also performed significantly less well than the RL group in semantic skills and syntactic skills on multiple modifiers.

Modeling the relationships between cognitive-linguistic skills and writing in Chinese among elementary grades students.

The present study is a four-year longitudinal study examining the important predictors of writing of 340 Chinese children in elementary grades. Children's transcription skills (handwriting skills and spelling), and syntactic skills in grade 1 were significant predictors of text writing in grade 1-4 while ideation in grade 1 only contributed to text writing in grade 2. Stroke order knowledge was shown as an important handwriting skill in Chinese reflecting the characteristics of the Chinese orthography.

Generalist genes and cognitive abilities in Chinese twins.

This study considered how far nonverbal cognitive, language and reading abilities are affected by common genetic influences in a sample of 312 typically developing Chinese twin pairs aged from 3 to 11 years. Children were individually given tasks of Chinese word reading, receptive vocabulary, phonological memory, tone awareness, syllable and rhyme awareness, rapid automatized naming, morphological awareness and orthographic skills, and Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices. Factor analyses on the verbal tasks adjusted for age indicated two factors: Language as the first factor and Reading as the second factor.

The Genetic and Environmental Foundation of the Simple View of Reading in Chinese.

The Simple View of Reading (SVR) in Chinese was examined in a genetically sensitive design. A total of 270 pairs of Chinese twins (190 pairs of monozygotic twins and 80 pairs of same-sex dizygotic twins) were tested on Chinese vocabulary and word reading at the mean age 7.8 years and reading comprehension of sentences and passages one year later.

Genetic and environmental influences on Chinese language and reading abilities.

This study investigated the etiology of individual differences in Chinese language and reading skills in 312 typically developing Chinese twin pairs aged from 3 to 11 years (228 pairs of monozygotic twins and 84 pairs of dizygotic twins; 166 male pairs and 146 female pairs). Children were individually given tasks of Chinese word reading, receptive vocabulary, phonological memory, tone awareness, syllable and rhyme awareness, rapid automatized naming, morphological awareness and orthographic skills, and Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices. All analyses controlled for the effects of age.

Phonology and access to Chinese character meaning.

One of the central concerns in theories of reading skills is the role of phonology in access to word meaning. The present study focused on this issue in Chinese to examine the extent to which phonology affects Chinese character recognition. Two naming experiments were conducted with a phonologically mediated semantic priming paradigm, and the relative frequencies of semantic associates of the targets and their homophones were manipulated systematically.