The development of phonological awareness and Pinyin knowledge in Mandarin-speaking school-aged children

The writing of Chinese is non-alphabetic, but children in China learn Pinyin, a Romanised alphabetic system, to facilitate literacy development. This research investigates how Mandarin phonological awareness (PA) develops, and how it interacts with Pinyin in school-aged Mandarin-speaking children in China.

In Beijing, 182 students in grades two through four (ages ranged between 91 and 135 months) were tested for PA (syllable manipulation and onset-rime oddity tasks) and Pinyin knowledge (Pinyin symbol naming and syllable reading tasks). ANOVAs were used to examine their developmental trajectories. Partial correlations and linear regressions were used to examine the relationships between PA and Pinyin knowledge.

Syllable awareness has already reached the ceiling level by grade two, while onset-rime awareness is still developing across grades. The ability to name Pinyin symbols decreases over time, while the ability to read syllables written in Pinyin stays invariant across grades. PA and Pinyin knowledge are significantly correlated, and the results of linear regression indicated that the relationship between PA and Pinyin syllable reading is bi-directional.

This study suggests that Mandarin PA development shows features characteristic of a non-alphabetic language with Pinyin knowledge playing a crucial role. Implications for theory and practice of Mandarin-speaking children's literacy development are discussed.