Writing facilitates learning to read in Chinese through reduction of holistic processing: a developmental study.

Abstract

Holistic processing has been identified as an expertise marker of face and object recognition. In contrast, the expertise marker of recognizing Chinese characters is reduced holistic processing (Hsiao & Cottrell, 2009), which is driven by Chinese writing experiences rather than reading ability (Tso, Au, & Hsiao, 2011). Here we investigate the developmental trend of holistic processing in Chinese character recognition and its relationship with reading and writing abilities by testing Chinese children who were learning Chinese at a public elementary school in Hong Kong on these abilities. We found that the holistic processing effect of Chinese characters in children was reduced as they reached higher grades; this reduction was driven by enhanced Chinese literacy rather than age. In addition, we found that writing performance predicts reading performance through reduced holistic processing as a mediator. We thus argue that writing hones analytic processing, which is essential for Chinese character recognition, and in turn facilitates learning to read in Chinese.