Morphological awareness and orthographic awareness link Chinese writing to reading comprehension

Researchers have investigated the association between word writing and word reading in both alphabetic languages and Chinese. The present study extended prior research to investigate the relationship between Chinese word writing (dictation) and reading comprehension in a group of 209 Hong Kong primary school students. Morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, speeded word reading, Chinese word writing and reading comprehension were measured in the present study. The results showed that both morphological awareness and orthographic awareness were significant mediators linking Chinese writing and reading comprehension. More strikingly, when we included the mediating role of speeded word reading in the above model, morphological awareness and orthographic awareness still exhibited significant mediating roles in linking Chinese writing and comprehension. Further analyses showed that morphological awareness and orthographic awareness were equally important in linking writing to reading comprehension in Chinese. Practical implications of the findings are discussed.