Teaching Chinese to second language learners is a challenge for preschool teachers in Hong Kong so effective teacher professional development programmes are urgently needed to enhance their knowledge and skills. An Integrative Model Teacher Professional Development Programme which incorporates three theoretical underpinnings (i.e., culturally responsive teaching, meaningful and pleasurable learning, and effective teaching of Chinese as a second language) is designed to equip preschool teachers with knowledge, skills, and awareness in teaching Chinese to ethnic minority students. Through qualitative interviews with 15 in-service preschool teachers who joined the Programme, teachers' perceptions and changes in three theoretical areas of teaching Chinese to ethnic minority students were explored. Particularly, teachers increased their awareness of ethnic minority cultures, developed empathy with ethnic minority children and their families, gained knowledge of implementing culturally responsive teaching and meaningful and pleasurable learning of Chinese. The role of teacher sharing in effective professional development was highlighted. Copyright © 2019 National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators.

This longitudinal study investigated the bidirectional relationships between executive functioning (EF), visual skills, Chinese and English word reading abilities in children transitioning to primary school. A total of 165 children in Hong Kong were followed from the third year of kindergarten (Time 1) (mean age: 62.80 months, SD: 3.74) to the first year of primary school (Time 2) (mean age: 77.25 months, SD: 4.60). Assessments for measuring EF, visual skills, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and Chinese and English word reading were administered to the children at the two time points. Results of cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that after age, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness were controlled, EF and visual skills exhibited a bidirectional relationship. Furthermore, EF and word reading in Chinese or English reciprocally predicted each other during the school transition period after other skills were controlled. However, visual skills and word reading in Chinese or English did not predict each other. These findings highlight the close associations between EF and visual skills as well as the importance of EF in learning to read Chinese and English in kindergarten and early primary school. Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This study investigated the conceptualization of children's socioemotional competence among parents and teachers of preschool children in Hong Kong, China. Focus groups were conducted with 16 parents and 18 teachers from three preschools. Thematic content analysis revealed that, reflecting the cultural as well as contextual characteristics of Hong Kong, parents and teachers expected socioemotionally competent children to master skills in emotion understanding, emotion expressivity, emotion regulation, relationship building, conflict management, and inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. There was diversity within parents' and teachers' interpretations of the characteristics of emotionally regulated and socially skilled children. Findings highlighted the ecosystemic nature of societal ideas about children's developmental competence, demonstrated the utility of qualitative research in exploring these ideas in culturally sensitive manners, and called for the mobilization of parents and teachers as research-informed scaffolders of holistic development of children. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This study was to evaluate the impact of an early literacy intervention program for preschoolers at risk for SpLD. One hundred ten children were identified as at risk for SpLD. They were divided into 2 groups, the at-risk group (AR) and the control-risk group (CR). The at-risk group received a centre-based intervention program which contained 15 training sessions on the four domains: oral language, orthographic knowledge, morphological awareness and word recognition tailored for children poor in literacy skills. The control-risk group received some self-learning materials related to their school curriculum and finished the materials at home. A further group of 50 children (NAR) who were not at risk were selected to act as controls and were assigned equally to the two groups. Nine language and reading related-cognitive tests were administered. Results from the 9 tests before the intervention showed that both AR and CR had similar literacy achievement. Both groups performed worse than NAR particularly in the oral language, word recognition, orthographic awareness and phonological awareness. After the intervention, though AR and CR did not catch up with NAR, AR showed greater improvement in most tests than CR. The differences in improvement were found significantly in orthographic awareness and morphological awareness. This showed that children at risk for SpLD in the preschool years could achieve higher in literacy ability by receiving special intervention program. The results highlighted the important role that early literacy intervention played in the development of language and reading skills in preschoolers at risk for SpLD.

With the increasing diversity and complexity of schools, it continuously demands innovative, responsibility and flexible approaches to teaching and learning. Society places a significant value on the attainment of literacy and the main goal of early education is to establish and acquire reading and writing skills. For students with specific learning difficulties (SpLD), literacy is a right and it continues to receive much concern and attention from professionals and educational policy makers. Over the past two decades, Hong Kong has been increasing research in understanding of SpLD and moving toward the development of services for students with SpLD. These students have specific educational needs which must be addressed to ensure that educational outcomes are achieved and special learning needs are taken into consideration in educational planning and curriculum design. However, educational assessments, learning support and resources to identify and support such children are still being developed in individual schools and research into this problem is limited. This paper will be discussed the characteristics of SpLD and its manifestations will be discussed. The special learning needs of these students will be discussed including assessments, modifications to pedagogy and use of IT equipments will be outlined and details of the expanded curriculum and how it can be taught in classroom will be addressed.

Dyslexia has received increasing professional and public awareness in Hong Kong over the past decade. The goal of understanding dyslexia is to provide effective prevention and remediation programs possible in order to ameliorate the disabling effects of the conditions. Students with dyslexia are often characterized by significant difficulties in reading and spelling despite access to conventional teaching and adequate formal education. Systematic evidence-based approaches to identify, assess and support have been developing and researching. First the core concepts of dyslexia: its definition, prevalence and developmental course are reviewed. Next the cognitive characteristics of dyslexia and its manifestations in Chinese students are discussed. To date the preponderance of reading interventions that might be used within a response-to-intervention (RTI) framework are also addressed.

The present study investigated the relationships between socioeconomic status (SES) and word reading in both Chinese (L1) and English (L2), with children's cognitive/linguistic skills considered as mediators and/or moderators. One hundred ninety-nine Chinese kindergarteners in Hong Kong with diverse SES backgrounds participated in this study. SES explained unique variance in English word reading even after age, phonological processing, vocabulary and working memory were controlled. However, the effect of SES on Chinese word reading became nonsignificant when these control variables were included. Moreover, phonological awareness showed a full mediating effect on the relationship between SES and Chinese word reading. Both phonological awareness and vocabulary were found to partially mediate the association between SES and English word reading. These findings complement our understanding of the relation between SES and reading development in Chinese societies and may have policy or intervention development implications.
[Copyright © 2015 UKLA.]

The present study aimed to investigate the contribution of oral language skills, linguistic skills, and transcription skills to Chinese written composition among Grade 4 students in Hong Kong. Measures assessing verbal working memory, oral language skills, linguistic skills (i.e., syntactic skills and discourse skills), transcription skills (i.e., spelling), and written composition were administered to Chinese fourth graders (N = 259). Hierarchical multiple regression results showed that only spelling and syntactic skills contributed significant unique variance to written composition. The relevance of the differences between the spoken Cantonese dialect and Modern Standard Written Chinese to these findings concerning the development of children's written composition is explored.
[Copyright of Discourse Processes: a multidisciplinary journal is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2013.841070]