lueth chinese literacy
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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