This paper looks at the continued survival of 'myths' about English grammar, for example, the statement that in negative and interrogative sentences any should be used instead of some. It is based on a survey of 195 Hong Kong students majoring in English, in five different cohorts, which found that such myths are quite prevalent; with choices of 'true', 'false', 'don't know' and 'partly true', the true option was chosen in over 50% of cases. Differences between subjects are identified and discussed, as well as changes across time from the first to the last cohort. Then the individual myths are discussed and explained one by one. A number of possible sources for the myths are suggested, and the means of combatting them are discussed, along with the reasons for their resilience.
[Copyright of Language Awareness is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2013.873803]

This study investigates the Chinese reading patterns of students with learning disabilities (LD). The performances of students with LD in reading the three categories of Chinese characters were particularly analysed: regular, irregular, and pseudo-characters. Fifty-three students with LD in reading and 44 students without LD of Year 4 were selected from five Hong Kong primary schools. Their abilities for reading Chinese characters were measured using Rasch analysis. Both types of students found regular characters as the easiest to read. Students without LD showed better performance in reading irregular characters than pseudo-characters, whereas students with LD exhibited no significant performance difference in reading these two categories. The implication of these results is that the students without LD might rely on using the orthographic processing than that of phonological processing to read. On the other hand, students with LD might not have the preference of using the orthographic processing.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2013.785060]