WRITING SYSTEM AND READING ABILITY IN PRESCHOOL
CHILDREN
Zhu D-S1, Guo D2, Xu J-D2,
Tao S-D2, Shen X-M2
1 Maternal and Children Hospital of Guangdong
Province, Guangzhou, China
2 Shanghai Second Medical University, Shanghai, China
Objective:
To explore whether the specific property of characters influence the
reading ability of the preschool children.
Methods: We
investigated the reading ability in preschoolers with normal intelligence
who learn words by Chinese characters and pinyin. Teaching protocols of
Chinese characters and pinyin were designed and applied to two groups of
subjects, respectively, for three months. Afterwards reading ability of two
groups was evaluated by the standardized written examination.
Results: We found
that Chinese characters group performed better and faster in the
examination than pinyin group. In the visual field preference test using
tachistometer, both groups, particularly the pinyin group, showed left
visual field preference for visual discrimination of words. Either in the
right visual field or in the left visual field, children in characters
group performed better and faster in visual discrimination of words than
those in pinyin group, which suggested that children were more sensitive to
characters than pinyin as visual stimulant.
Conclusion: It seem
to be more difficult for preschoolers to learn words by pinyin than by
characters and it may not be appropriate to teach preschool children
Chinese by pinyin in the beginning stage of their learning.