The relationship between appreciation of riddles and Chinese text comprehension in children

Abstract

The present study investigated (1) the role of riddle appreciation and reading accuracy in Chinese written text comprehension, and (2) relationship between different types of riddles and Chinese written text comprehension in 40 Cantonese-speaking children aged 9;0 to 11;0 studying in Grade 4. Due to the imperative role of metalinguistic knowledge and riddle appreciation, it was hypothesized that riddle appreciation would show high correlation with Chinese written text comprehension. The findings supported the hypothesis and previous literature that both riddle appreciation and reading accuracy were closely related to Chinese written text comprehension. Regression analyses indicated a significant linear relationship only between riddle appreciation and written text comprehension. Among lexical, morphological, orthographic, phonological, pragmatic and syntactic riddles, all riddles except phonological and pragmatic riddles were found to be significantly correlated with Chinese text comprehension. Specifically, orthographic riddles demonstrated the strongest correlation. Based on these findings, the crucial and practical role of riddle appreciation in text comprehension was highlighted.