To read and write Chinese require an ability to recognise more than 1,000 basic graphic units. Very few studies have looked into the perceptual learning process of these graphic units at the initial stage when young children are being introduced to the script. Two tasks were developed to tap children‘s understanding of graphic properties of written Chinese. In the name writing task, we investigated whether preschool children, aged 3-5, (1) would differentiate drawing from writing, (2) used a correspondence between character and syllable in their writing, (3) used multiple units within one character or across characters, and (4) respected some of the supra-segmented properties of written Chinese. In the graphic acceptability task, we examined if 5-9 years old children could make orthographic judgements based on positioning and graphic properties of the stroke-patterns. Our results indicated that preschool children could already demonstrate some knowledge of the properties of graphic units in Chinese by using strokes or made-up stroke-patterns in their name writing. Five and six-year-olds rejected words with illegal graphic features and seven- and eight-years-olds distinguished nonwords from pseudowords based on illegal position of stroke-patterns. We conclude that Chinese children implicitly learn graphic properties of the writing System which arc crucial in the learning process, the possibility to shift perceptual learning of graphic properties of written Chinese from implicit learning to explicit teaching deserves further investigation. The aim of this chapter is to analyze children’s developing knowledge of the graphic units that arc related to speech units in Chinese and the difference between what children arc explicitly taught and what they learn implicitly about these graphic units. The term ‘implicit‘ is used here to indicate that both Chinese children and adults are usually unaware of those formal characteristics of their script that are analyzed in this paper

The present study investigated physical activity trends among young children aged three, four, and five years old in Hong Kong preschools using pedometry. Subjects were eighty-six boys and sixty-two girls (n = 148). The Digi-walker sw-200 electronic pedometers were utilized to collect activity data during daily regular physical activities in three preschools. School A was located at the rural area whereas School B and C were in urban areas. An observation inventory, Children Activity Rating's Scale (CARS), was used to categorize the intensity level of the physical activities and to validate the pedometer counts. In line with overseas studies, significant age and gender differences in physical activity levels were also observed among the Hong Kong preschool children. A two (gender) × three (age groups) analysis of variance indicated that both main effects were statistically significant (p < 0.05). Older children in the school (School A) with a larger outdoor play space in a rural district were much more active than their counterparts in urban schools (Schools B and C) with limited indoor play space. The pedometer counts correlated significantly (p < 0.05) with the CARS scores, which suggested that pedometry can be a reliable tool to measure the intensity of physical activity level of preschool children.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443022000022459]

There is an increasing demand from the public and the field to improve the quality of early childhood education in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Education Commission has recently released an "education blueprint for the 21st century", which presents a set of reform proposals for the education system in Hong Kong. In the document, early childhood education has been acknowledged as the foundation for life-long learning. A key reform proposal is to build a new culture for quality early childhood education through upgrading professional competence and enhancing quality assurance mechanisms. The present paper provides a general background of existing practices in the preschool years, highlights issues that require attention in order to improve quality, and outlines the reforms introduced by the Education Commission. The implications of these reforms and the associated challenges are then discussed in the areas of quality assurance, curriculum, professional development, parental involvement and financial assistance for the early childhood education sector.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443022000022387 ]

A Chinese script is represented by Chinese characters and each character is a square-shaped configuration with condensed strokes. Children in Hong Kong are explicitly taught to write at a very young age. They are guided to draw vertical and horizontal lines at age three, and are required to write simple characters with few strokes at age four. When children are ready for formal schooling at age six, many of them can write around 50-60 characters. Typical writing lessons consist of penmanship drills and assigned character copying tasks, but in some preschools teachers have begun to change the writing curriculum and make a distinction between emergent literacy and conventional literacy. Early writings are marked by scribbles, drawings and invented spellings, and these are regarded as signs of active exploration for children to understand the writing system. The present study introduces the learning experience of a four-year-old girl who was encouraged by her teacher and parents to be an emergent writer. Her writings went through several stages of development within a year, and her spontaneous experiments with writing in the initial stage contributed significantly to her becoming a fairly independent and confident writer.
[Copyright of Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09575140801945304]