Maternal mediation of writing in Chinese children

Abstract

Two scales of mothers’ mediation of their children's writing based on Aram and Levin (2001) were developed and tested in 67 mother–child Hong Kong Chinese dyads in three grade levels – second-year kindergarten, third-year kindergarten, and first grade. With children's ages, grades, and non-verbal IQs, as well as mothers’ education levels statistically controlled in a regression equation, the four strategies of the ‘Print Mediation’ scale, a measure of mother–child joint writing productions, explained a unique 10% of the variance in children's word reading. These four strategies tended to change with age such that higher autonomy was more common among older children and lower autonomy was more prevalent among younger children. In a separate hierarchical regression equation, the ‘Literate Mediation’ scale, tapping specific writing strategies, explained a unique 8–11% of the variance in children's word reading. A prevalence of copying strategies tended to be negatively associated with reading skill and a prevalence of morphologically based strategies tended to be positively associated with reading skill, even apart from age and grade level. Findings demonstrate some strong developmental trends in the writing process but also suggest that a more analytic approach to Chinese character writing may be helpful for literacy development, even among the youngest children.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported in part by the Campus Service Award Scheme 2006/2007 from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and by RGC grant #4489/07H from the Hong Kong Government. We would like to thank (in alphabetical order) Kenneth K. F. Chung, Candy L. S. Ho, Angela K. Y. Wong, Ellery K. Y. Wu, and Azure S. W. Yeung for their assistance in different stages of the research process.