Early literacy acquisition in logographic orthographies: Evidence from Chinese and Japanese

We examined the cognitive-linguistic predictors of early literacy development and the extent to which they were similar or different across two logographic orthographies (Chinese and Japanese Kanji). Data from 167 Hong Kong Chinese children and 169 Japanese children were used. Children were tested on cognitive-linguistic skills (phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming [RAN], morphological awareness, vocabulary) in Grade 1 and literacy skills (word reading and spelling) in Grades 1 and 2. Whereas the association of phonological awareness with word reading was significantly stronger in Japanese than in Chinese, the association of RAN with word reading was stronger in Chinese. Morphological awareness predicted literacy skills in both languages. Moreover, mediation analysis revealed that the effects of the cognitive-linguistic skills on later literacy skills were fully mediated by early literacy skills, except that morphological awareness directly predicted later spelling in Japanese. These findings suggest that the nature of writing systems can modulate the relationship between cognitive-linguistic skills and literacy skills, even when they share the logographic nature and use the same graphic symbols.