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Cross-script transfer of word reading fluency in a mixed writing system: Evidence from a longitudinal study in Japanese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2018

TOMOHIRO INOUE Open the ORCID record for TOMOHIRO INOUE [Opens in a new window] ,
GEORGE K. GEORGIOU ,
HIROFUMI IMANAKA ,
TAKAKO OSHIRO ,
HIROYUKI KITAMURA ,
HISAO MAEKAWA  and
RAUNO PARRILA
TOMOHIRO INOUE*
Affiliation:
Seigakuin University
GEORGE K. GEORGIOU
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
HIROFUMI IMANAKA
Affiliation:
Fukuyama City University
TAKAKO OSHIRO
Affiliation:
Okinawa Chubu Medical Treatment and Education Center
HIROYUKI KITAMURA
Affiliation:
Hokkaido University of Education
HISAO MAEKAWA
Affiliation:
Iwaki Junior College
RAUNO PARRILA
Affiliation:
Macquarie University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Dr. Tomohiro Inoue, Department of Child Studies, Seigakuin University, 1-1 Tosaki, Ageo, Saitama, 362-8585, Japan. E-mail: t_inoue@seigakuin-univ.ac.jp
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Abstract

We examined the cross-lagged relations between word reading fluency in the two orthographic systems of Japanese: phonetic (syllabic) Hiragana and morphographic Kanji. One hundred forty-two Japanese-speaking children were assessed on word reading fluency twice in Grade 1 (Times 1 and 2) and twice in Grade 2 (Times 3 and 4). Nonverbal IQ, vocabulary, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and rapid automatized naming were also assessed in Time 1. Results of path analysis revealed that Time 1 Hiragana fluency predicted Time 2 Kanji fluency after controlling for the cognitive skills. Time 2 Hiragana fluency did not predict Time 3 Kanji fluency or vice versa after the autoregressor was controlled, but Hiragana and Kanji fluency were reciprocally related between Times 3 and 4. These findings provide evidence for a cross-script transfer of word reading fluency across the two contrastive orthographic systems, and the first evidence of fluency in a morphographic script predicting fluency development in a phonetic script within the same language.

Keywords

cross-script transferJapaneseword reading fluencywriting systems
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , March 2019 , pp. 235 - 251
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

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