Chinese heritage children learning to read characters: The effects of group reading and frequency of character exposure

Learning to read Chinese has been the main focus of heritage language education. The frequency exposure orthography–phonology and orthography–semantics correspondences radical awareness play a significant role in character learning. However, limited characters textbooks lack explicit instruction on phonetic radicals have proposed as limitations conventional methods used with learners. current study assessed efficacy providing frequent group reading activities for children their early learning Mandarin through teaching method called Progressive Character Reading. effectiveness acquisition comprehension was examined quasi-experimental framework that compared undergoing new (experimental group, n = 20) learners experiencing traditional textbook-based (control 20). Significant differences gains between these two groups were found measures reading, character–picture matching sentence comprehension. These results suggest can increase over associated instruction.