Syntax, or sentence structure, plays a role in reading comprehension, but how students draw on their awareness of syntax in their reading remains unclear; the mechanism is even more ambiguous in bilingual students. In this study, we evaluated the direct and indirect contributions of syntactic awareness on first-language Chinese and second-language…

While extensive quantitative research has shed light on the cognitive mechanisms of dyslexia, few mixed-methods studies have been conducted to examine the perceptions of and attitudes towards learning in children with dyslexia, especially in Hong Kong, a bilingual context. In addition, the validity of the metaphor elicitation technique, which was…

This paper probes alternative meanings and processes for decolonizing English that arise from the particular geopolitical histories and identities of Hong Kong and engagement with political and translingual activism. I illustrate the positioning and tension between English, 'Kongish' (a mix of English and localized linguistic resources in Hong…

In bilingual education programmes, teachers, particularly content subject teachers, play an important role in helping students master content knowledge and the target language simultaneously. In this regard, teachers' language awareness, which will affect their pedagogical practices, is crucial. Collaboration between content subject and language…

In this study, we examined the mechanism for the relationship between morphological awareness and Chinese character reading in a group of Hong Kong primary school children when they were in grade two (n = 176, mean age = 8.07) and grade three (n = 163, mean age = 9.02). The results showed that morphological awareness, morpheme family size and the…

While the importance of linguistically responsive teaching (LRT) in multilingual classrooms is well documented, preservice English teachers' conceptions of LRT and the pertinent sociocultural processes that shape their LRT conceptions and practices remain under-researched. Qualitatively examining the experiences and understandings of 15 preservice…

This study examined how a dialogic reading (DR) program with a component of multisensory learning (MS) of Chinese characters improved early Chinese reading and writing skills in L2 Chinese-speaking kindergarteners in Hong Kong. The DR + MS program was compared to the same DR program but focusing on morphological awareness (MA) training. A total of…

With a one-stage meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) analysis based on 49,416 individuals from 267 independent samples and 210 studies, the current study systematically investigated models including meta-linguistic skills, decoding, language comprehension, and reading comprehension for Chinese population. Findings showed that (1)…

Purpose: This study investigates young Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners' Chinese character reading performance and its relationship with their orthographic awareness. There is a pressing need to gain a better understanding of Hong Kong's ethnic minority students' CSL acquisition, so that more effective instruction can be provided.…

This paper analyses "Kongish Daily," a Facebook page that trans-scripts local news in Hong Kong into a creative and dynamic mix of Cantonese in traditional Chinese characters, Romanisation and made-up characters, simplified Chinese, pinyin, English, Hong Kong English, other phonetic symbols, emoji and other signs and images. We trace the…

In the present study, the mediating roles of syllable awareness, orthographic knowledge, and vocabulary skills and the moderating role of morpheme family size in the association between morphological awareness and Chinese character reading were investigated with 176 second-grade Hong Kong Chinese children. In the path analyses, the results…

In this paper, the role of radical awareness in Chinese character reading development among young Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) learners is evaluated in terms of a structural property of the writing system: the distribution of elementary, one-radical (i.e. one-element) simple characters as against majority, multi-radical compound characters.…

This study investigated the rate of school-aged Chinese-English language learners at risk for reading difficulties in either Chinese or English only, or both, among second and fifth graders in Hong Kong. In addition, we examined the metalinguistic skills that distinguished those who were poor in reading Chinese from those who were poor in reading…

An in-depth exploration of the associations of two aspects of morphological awareness in Chinese--homophone awareness and lexical compounding awareness--to Chinese word reading and vocabulary knowledge was the primary focus of the present study. Among 154 9-year-old Hong Kong Chinese children, both lexical compounding and homophone awareness were…

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the impact of learners' L1s and proficiency levels on their written production. This study also examined the influence of speech upon their writing. The following research questions were explored: (a) How do L1 and proficiency levels of learners affect their degrees of register awareness? (b)…