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- abstract below

Factors Related to Chinese Reading Performance in Cantonese and Potunghua Speaking Children with and without Dyslexia: Evidence of Cross-Language Transfer of Phonological and Orthographic Processing

Alice Cheng Lai

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong (SAR), China hsalai@inet.polyu.edu.hk

Abstract

Parallel measures of phonological and orthographic processing skills and reading were measured in Chinese to 180 children in both Hong Kong and Beijing. In Hong Kong, the children’s 1st language (L1) was Cantonese and in Beijing will be Putonghua, English was the 2nd language (L2) of all the children. It is postulated that phonological and orthographic skills will be correlated across L1 and L2. Phonological skill in both L1 and L2 was correlated with L2 reading and contributed a unique variance to L2 reading, even though the Chinese children’s L1 is not written in an alphabetic orthography, whereas the 2nd language had an alphabetic orthography. This research adds to a growing body of evidence for cross-language transfer of phonological and orthographic processing in Chinese reading and in L2 learning of English-as-a-Second-Language. The study recommends effective assessment and intervention strategies to assist bilingual dyslexic and non-dyslexic children in enhancing their Chinese and English reading performance.

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