Research to Practice

Chinese Literacy

2009 - Betsy Lueth, Yinghua Academy

The QuestionsHow is learning to speak, read and write

different with Chinese characters (related to English)?

How or when do we add pinyin, what characters should we use, what are the character count benchmarks we should use?

Where can I find research-based resources to teach the state and national standards with Chinese language at the same time?

2009 - Betsy Lueth, Yinghua Academy

Levels of Emergent LiteracyJ.K. Buckwalter, Y.-H. Gloria Lo/Journal of Second Language Writing 11 (2002) 269-

293

Foundational StructuralPrint rich

environments necessary.

A relationship between print and oral language exists.

Conventions are necessary for written language to gain meaning.

Chinese uses morpho-syllabic characters.

Radical clues are critical to teach for meaning.

Phonetic clues happen irregularly.

2009 - Betsy Lueth, Yinghua Academy

“Strategies for Enhancing Emergent Literacy in Chinese Preschools” by Zhenyou Yu and Nancy Pine, National Reading Conference, December 2006, Los Angeles, California, USA

Examples of the Foundational Level

• Varied vocabulary use. Rich oral language experience leads to better reading ability (Tabors, Snow & Dickenson, 2001)•Use of pictures and picture books for discussions with students.•Print rich environment.•Modeling reading and writing activities.

2009 - Betsy Lueth, Yinghua Academy

“Reading depends on writing, in Chinese” Li Hai Tan, John A. Spinks, Guinevere F. Eden, Charles A. Perfetti, and Wai Ting Siok; Proceedings of

National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) June 14, 2005. vol. 102Example of a Structural Level

•“Significant spatial analysis is intrinsic in learning a Chinese character, and visual-orthographic processing is an important part of character reading”•“Through writing, children learn to deconstruct characters into a unique pattern of strokes and components…”

2009 - Betsy Lueth, Yinghua Academy

Some more research…In the book Chinese Children’s Reading Acquisition: Theoretical and Pedagogical Issues edited by Wenling Li, Janet S. Gaffney, and Jerome L. Packard, there are a few more thoughts:

• There are some skills that are transferable between reading Chinese characters and English, primarily the concept of syllabication and print awareness.• Delaying the introduction of pinyin is o.k. in Chinese, phonological awareness may be less important if your mission is for your students to read and write characters. • The skills of radical identification and syllabication is much more important in learning to read and write characters, than the phonetic component of a compound character.2009 - Betsy Lueth, Yinghua Academy

Writing to Read vs. “Read First Write Later”

“Reading depends on writing, in Chinese” Li Hai Tan – 2005 National Academy of Sciences

TAKE AWAY: Writing characters in proper stroke order repeatedly allows students to remember radical configurations, and embeds meaning using visual and fine motor connections.

“Reading does not depend on writing, even in Chinese” Yanchao Bi – 2008 Neuropsychologia

TAKE AWAY: Reading and writing are independent functions of the brain. Writing difficulty may have a relationship with reading difficulty in the acquisition stages.

2009 - Betsy Lueth, Yinghua Academy

Language and Content Resources

Building Our Own…Develop social

language benchmarks

Develop and use a language-based lesson plan

Review elementary level materials for Chinese native speakers

Use theme based curriculum map with standards

Develop academic language requirements

Use a language approach for all content

Develop activities that promote student to student and student to teacher oral discussion and writing activities

2009 - Betsy Lueth, Yinghua Academy