Research on Chinese children’s literacy development is important as this can lead us to a better understanding of the mechanisms of literacy development from both language-general and language-specific perspectives. The findings of such studies can provide research-based evidence to support learning Chinese, a language that is used by about 20% of the world’s population. So far, a great amount of research has focused on the roles of metalinguistic skills on learning to read in Chinese (such as phonological awareness and morphological awareness), while relatively few studies have explored the roles of other cognitive factors. In order to draw a comprehensive picture on the mechanisms of reading development in Chinese, and understand the role of domain-general factors in literacy development, an exploration of the effects of the cognitive factors beyond linguistic and metalinguistic skills is necessary.
There have been some studies that found the associations of some cognitive factors with learning to read in Chinese either at the character/word level (i.e., word reading accuracy and/or fluency) or at the passage level (i.e., reading comprehension). These factors may include, but are not limited to, visual attention and visual processing skills, temporal processing, paired-associated learning, executive function (including working memory), and reasoning. The aim of this collection of articles is to advance knowledge and discussion in the above gaps by integrating high quality empirical studies together, while providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of the importance of domain-general cognitive abilities in learning to read Chinese. Besides studies on learning to read Chinese in children at L1, another aim of this collection of articles could be to address issues on learning Chinese at L2. The articles considered for the collection should cover original research (e.g., correlational, experimental, and intervention studies), so we can investigate the research questions from multiple angles.
Research on Chinese children’s literacy development is important as this can lead us to a better understanding of the mechanisms of literacy development from both language-general and language-specific perspectives. The findings of such studies can provide research-based evidence to support learning Chinese, a language that is used by about 20% of the world’s population. So far, a great amount of research has focused on the roles of metalinguistic skills on learning to read in Chinese (such as phonological awareness and morphological awareness), while relatively few studies have explored the roles of other cognitive factors. In order to draw a comprehensive picture on the mechanisms of reading development in Chinese, and understand the role of domain-general factors in literacy development, an exploration of the effects of the cognitive factors beyond linguistic and metalinguistic skills is necessary.
There have been some studies that found the associations of some cognitive factors with learning to read in Chinese either at the character/word level (i.e., word reading accuracy and/or fluency) or at the passage level (i.e., reading comprehension). These factors may include, but are not limited to, visual attention and visual processing skills, temporal processing, paired-associated learning, executive function (including working memory), and reasoning. The aim of this collection of articles is to advance knowledge and discussion in the above gaps by integrating high quality empirical studies together, while providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of the importance of domain-general cognitive abilities in learning to read Chinese. Besides studies on learning to read Chinese in children at L1, another aim of this collection of articles could be to address issues on learning Chinese at L2. The articles considered for the collection should cover original research (e.g., correlational, experimental, and intervention studies), so we can investigate the research questions from multiple angles.
