This study examined the bidirectionality between kindergarten children's executive functioning (EF) and word reading across two time points. Participants were 523 Hong Kong Chinese-speaking children (mean age at Time 2 = 64.59 months; 52.9% male) and their parents. At Time 1, children were administered the measures of EF skills: inhibitory control, attention shifting, working memory and Chinese word reading. They were reassessed with these measures at Time 2 one year later. Results from the cross-lagged panel model revealed that, controlling for child age, gender and parental education levels, children's word reading at Time 1 was significantly predictive of their working memory at Time 2, but that the three EF skills at Time 1 were not predictive of word reading at Time 2. These findings underscored the role of early word reading in promoting children's working memory. Copyright © 2020 UKLA.

Reading is the basis of most learning but is regarded by students as a boring activity in Hong Kong. Therefore, schools in Hong Kong have launched different reading programs to promote reading. One of the successful examples is Reading Battle which gamifies the reading comprehension assessments with points, levels, e-badges and leaderboard on an interactive learning platform. This study looked into how gamification affected the flow experience of students and discussed to what extent the nine flow dimensions were experienced by them, especially the heavy users of the gamified learning platform. This case study chose nine students from four different elementary schools in Hong Kong and adopted a mixed method such as questionnaires and interviews. While many students first did it for external motivation such as getting more points and ranking high on the leaderboard, the study found that the heavy users of Reading Battle became committed to reading and many enjoyed the flow experiences where they seemed to forget about time and discomfort and truly enjoyed the reading process.
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香港回歸22年以來,為促進與內地的溝通合作,地區政府重視"兩文三語"的平衡發展,出臺了一系列政策對普通話進行推廣,提高市民普通話能力,並在普通話教學方面取得了顯著的成績。本文重點分析了香港地區普通話推廣情況、教學特點、教學存在的問題並提出有利於普通話教學的有效路徑。

本文在梳理香港普通話教材編寫研究的基礎上,從語言知識結構、交際用語、中國文化三個角度,對比分析了香港目前通行的五套小學普通話教材,並對香港小學選擇普通話教材編寫提出建議,以期為今後香港小學普通話教材編寫提供一定的依據。

Objectives: It has been supported by various literatures that there is a relation between holistic processing and Chinese character recognition. The present study examined the relation between holistic processing of Chinese characters and literacy ability of Hong Kong preschoolers, in order to explore whether the extent of holistic processing is associated with writing or reading experience. Methods: Participants were 59 local preschoolers (37 boys, 22 girls). The literacy ability of participants was assessed by The Hong Kong Reading Ability Screening Test for Preschool Children (RAST-K); while holistic processing of Chinese characters was measured by adopting the procedures from Hsiao & Cottrell (2009) in a complete composite paradigm (Gauthier & Bukach, 2007). Results: In line with the previous research findings, preschoolers also showed holistic processing in perceiving Chinese characters. Specifically, K2 students were significantly more holistic than K3 students. Such discrepancy may relate to writing experience instead of reading experience since a negative correlation between holistic processing and writing ability was significantly observed. Conclusion: This study had a theoretical contribution on the study of Chinese writing difficulties among preschoolers. Educators and parents may help enhancing the writing ability of preschoolers by leading them to perceive the characters separately, i.e. weakening the holistic processing of Chinese characters. All rights reserved.

口語是人們日常學習及溝通，以至交流情感的工具。《幼稚園教育課程指引》(2017，頁 28) 指出，香港人口大都以中文（口語主要是粵語）為溝通媒介，學校應該「先讓幼兒多發展中文方面的能力」，並「為幼兒提供生活化和富趣昧的聽、説經驗」，從而「豐富讀、寫的經驗。」其實，不少幼兒教育理論也認同「感官學習」對幼兒的重要性。本研究以行動研究方式，以29位介乎5-6歲「高班」幼兒為研究對象，嘗試透過「多感官學習法」改善幼兒的粵語發音。研究結果發現100%受試幼兒能透過「多感官學習法」改善粵語發音，也提高了説粵語的信心，顯示「多感官學習法」引導學前幼兒掌握粵語發音的可行性。同時，家長問卷也顯示「多感官學習法」得到家長的認同。 Copyright © 2019 香港教師中心.

當前語文課程及教學研究都十分重視引導學生掌握閱讀策略，但對於小學低年級學生閱讀策略的學習對加強閱讀理解表現有否成效，卻依然存在爭議。針對這一問題，本研究在香港六所本地小學二年級實施了為期一年的閱讀策略教學准實驗。控制班136 人，實驗班148 人。研究表明，教學實驗後，實驗班學生的閱讀理解進步分顯著高於控制班；低水平的閱讀者在閱讀實驗中受益最大。調查問卷顯示，學生在教學實驗後在展示創意、想像畫面兩項策略的應用頻次上有顯著提升。本研究也討論了研究結果對閱讀教學的一些啟發。The current Chinese curriculum and teaching research attach great importance to master reading strategies, but the effects of learning reading strategies among lower graders are still controversial. In response to this research gap, this study implemented a one-year quasi-experiment by teaching P2 students reading strategies among six local primary schools in Hong Kong. There were 136 pupils in the controlled class and 148 in the experimental class. This study demonstrated that after the teaching experiment, students in experimental class had a significant improvement in reading comprehension than that of the controlled class; low level readers benefitted the most from the teaching experiment. Results collected from the questionnaire indicated that students have significantly improved the use of the two strategies (i.e., demonstrating creativity and imaging) when reading independently after teaching experiment. Implications on reading instruction derived from the results were discussed as well. Copyright © 2019 香港教育大學.

This study investigated the direct and indirect roles of verbal and visuospatial memory in Chinese reading comprehension. One hundred twenty-eight Cantonese-speaking children participated in the study at the end of their 3rd year of kindergarten in Hong Kong. Both verbal and visuospatial memory were found to be significantly associated with Chinese reading comprehension. Path analysis showed that visuospatial memory was significantly associated with reading comprehension through word reading. Verbal memory was associated with reading comprehension indirectly through listening comprehension. Additionally, the direct path from visuospatial memory to reading comprehension was significant when word reading and listening comprehension were considered simultaneously. The findings of the direct and unique role of visuospatial memory in reading comprehension in Chinese elaborated and extended our understanding of the simple view of reading in young children in a non-alphabetic language. Copyright © 2020 Springer Nature B.V.

This study investigated Hong Kong secondary students' Classical Chinese (CC) reading comprehension, reading motivation, and the effects of different types of motivation on CC reading. Four hundred forty-eight seniors from four secondary schools in Hong Kong voluntarily completed a CC reading comprehension test and a reading motivation questionnaire. Findings indicated that students' CC reading performance was unsatisfactory. They had poor self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation in CC reading and read CC texts mainly for extrinsic reasons. While high-achievers had better CC reading comprehension performance and higher extrinsic motivation than low-achievers, they had lower intrinsic motivation. Unlike many previous studies in which intrinsic motivation has been found to be the most optimal type of reading motivation, structural equation modeling indicated that only self-efficacy and extrinsic motivation were significant predictors of students' CC reading comprehension performance after controlling for achievement level. The relation between CC reading and different types of motivation is discussed in light of the special nature of CC and the learning context of Hong Kong.
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