The development of phonological awareness and Pinyin knowledge in Mandarin-speaking school-aged children

Abstract

Purpose

The writing of Chinese is non-alphabetic, but children in China learn Pinyin, a Romanised alphabetic system, to facilitate literacy development. This research investigates how Mandarin phonological awareness (PA) develops, and how it interacts with Pinyin in school-aged Mandarin-speaking children in China.

Method

In Beijing, 182 students in grades two through four (ages ranged between 91 and 135 months) were tested for PA (syllable manipulation and onset-rime oddity tasks) and Pinyin knowledge (Pinyin symbol naming and syllable reading tasks). ANOVAs were used to examine their developmental trajectories. Partial correlations and linear regressions were used to examine the relationships between PA and Pinyin knowledge.

Result

Syllable awareness has already reached the ceiling level by grade two, while onset-rime awareness is still developing across grades. The ability to name Pinyin symbols decreases over time, while the ability to read syllables written in Pinyin stays invariant across grades. PA and Pinyin knowledge are significantly correlated, and the results of linear regression indicated that the relationship between PA and Pinyin syllable reading is bi-directional.

Conclusion

This study suggests that Mandarin PA development shows features characteristic of a non-alphabetic language with Pinyin knowledge playing a crucial role. Implications for theory and practice of Mandarin-speaking children’s literacy development are discussed.

Keywords:

• phonological awareness
• Pinyin knowledge
• non-alphabetic language
• Mandarin Chinese
• school-aged children

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to the schools, children, parents and student assistants who participated in the data collection and processing.

Special thanks to Dr. Karen Pollock who whole-heartedly supported the development of this article. Thanks to Dr. Andrea MacLeod for hosting ICPC 2019. Thanks to Dr. Barbara Dodd for her suggestions on the article. Thanks to the guest editors and IJSLP for initiating this special issue which focusses on global perspectives. Thanks to the reviewers and editors for their suggestions and support.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at <https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2020.1819417>/description of location.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Peking University Office of Humanities and Social Sciences under Grant “Investigation and Research on Learning Difficulties in Elementary Students in Beijing”.