Introduction

The vocabulary of Chinese is represented with a vast number of visually complex characters. Because Chinese does not have grapheme–phoneme correspondence rules in pronunciation, it has been assumed, for a long time, that Chinese children acquire characters by memorization. However, recent studies have provided strong experimental evidence that, just as in learning to read alphabetic scripts, an understanding of the nature of the correspondence between print and sound is crucial in learning Chinese characters (Tzeng, 2001). Research also reported that all children, regardless of types of reading instruction they receive and types of written scripts (traditional or simplified), learn to develop similar knowledge of relationships between orthography and phonology (Ho & Bryant, 1997; Shu, Anderson & Wu, 2000; Tzeng et al., 1995).

In the past two decades, one of the most important discoveries in psycholinguistic research is the role of phonological awareness in learning to read alphabetic languages. Experimental studies have indicated that children's knowledge of the linkage between orthography and phonology forms the foundation of reading acquisition. Reading difficulties found in dyslexic children are mainly due to their failure to form a good knowledge of orthography and phonology (Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Snowling et al., 1986). Recent years have seen an increasing interest in the study of language and reading acquisition through database analysis and connectionist models (Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989).