The present study aimed to examine the role of phonological--semantic flexibility (PSF) in learning to read Chinese. PSF refers to a specific flexibility applied to process the dual linguistic dimensions of words (i.e., sound and meaning). A correlational study (Study 1) was conducted to determine the unique contribution of PSF to three aspects of…

Whether the simple view of reading (SVR) as incorporated in the componential model of reading (CMR) is applicable to other orthographies than English was explored in this study. Spanish, with transparent orthography and Chinese, with opaque orthography were selected because of their diverse characteristics. The first part reports a study of…

The traditional theory of Chinese writing is that it is divorced from the language because as a non-alphabetic system, it cannot represent real speech. Chinese writing, however, is a functional linguistic system in its own right. Writing does not need to be totally dependent on speech, but can be related either to the phonological or the semantic…

Reports that by combining a phonetic writing system with instruction in carefully selected clusters of related Chinese characters, Chinese schools can start children on productive reading at an early age with texts closer to their developed cognitive levels. (FL)