The association between children ’s common Chinese stroke errors and spelling ability

AbstractThe present study adopted an error analysis approach to examine the stroke errors committed by 43 Hong Kong Chinese children of Grades 1 and 3 from a Chinese Character Copying Task. It aimed to determine the common stroke error patterns, developmental changes and the cognitive problems implied. The different types of stroke errors and total number of correct stroke sequence were further linked to Chinese word spelling ability and associated cognitive-linguistic skills. Results revealed that wrong stroke sequence and wrong character configuration were the common stroke errors in both grades and Grade 3 students made significantly fewer errors in these two categories. Both wrong stroke sequence and wrong character configuration were found to be associated with poor visual discrimination skills and visual sequential and spatial memory. Character configuration error was a significant predictor of Chinese word spelling ability whereas correct stroke sequence only contributed significantly to Chinese word spelling performance in Grade 3. These findings suggest the significance of character configuration knowledge in Chinese spelling and its importance in facilitating the orthographic developments of structural knowledge and radical knowledge. The findings have implications for the design of an enriched curriculum to teach Chinese character so as to foster a better foundation for orthographic development as well as Chinese word spelling ability.
Source: Reading and Writing - Category: Child Development Source Type: research