Abstract：Chinese character literacy is key for young children to develop reading and cognitive skills. However, there are no effective evaluation tools with local norms to gauge the Chinese character literacy for primary school students in Hong Kong. The present research attempts to construct the database of commonly used Chinese characters from Primary 1 to 6 Chinese textbooks in Hong Kong, and use it to develop two Chinese character literacy test models, namely the test of Chinese identification accuracy (HK-CIAT) and the test of Chinese identification fluency (HK-CIFT). The tests and their validity criteria verifications were implemented in 12 primary schools at different ranking levels (high, medium, low) in Hong Kong in order to establish grade-based norms for students’ Chinese identification accuracy and fluency. The results of the trial implementations indicate that the two tests can provide effective evaluation to individual students’ Chinese character identification ability and developmental tendency, and predict school students’ comprehensive Chinese language ability. With a clear grade-based distinction, HK-CIAT and HK-CIFT are the first two standardized Chinese character literacy tests that take into account both the level of learning and word frequency of Chinese characters. The tests are characterized by easy operation, moderate length and difficulty level, wide application to a wide range of age groups, and availability of local norms. In addition, they can effectively differentiate typically developed students and students with reading difficulties in Chinese character identification and fluency, which may help educators to bring in relevant educational support in time.
伍秋萍，郑佩芸. 香港地区学龄儿童汉字认读水平测试研制与常模建构[J]. 语言战略研究, 2023, 8(3): 58-67.
Wu Qiuping and Zheng Peiyun. Establishment of Chinese Character Identification Test and Construction of Local Norms for Primary School Children in Hong Kong. , 2023, 8(3): 58-67.
