儿童汉字练习:纸笔手写与键盘拼音输入的效果比较

Chinese character practice: Comparison between children using handwriting and Pinyin keyboarding

在学校情境下,采用纸笔手写和键盘拼音输入练习汉字的实验任务,比较了75名小学六年级儿童在两种练习方式下的汉字学习及复习效果,并进行了保持效果的追踪。结果发现,纸笔手写和键盘拼音输入对儿童的汉字复习具有同等积极作用,在再认选择和回忆书写上效果均相当;对儿童的汉字学习积极作用不一致:在再认选择上两者积极效果相当,但在回忆书写上,手写明显优于拼音输入。另外,经纸笔手写和键盘拼音输入复习和学习的汉字,其记忆保持随时间变化的趋势一致。以上结果说明了对具有书面语言经验的儿童,拼音输入与手写都有助于形成和巩固汉字在心理词典中的义音形联结,但手写动作更有利于汉字从正字法代码向书写动作程序的转换;"提笔忘字"现象可能是正字法遗忘的结果,并非由使用拼音输入法造成。

A long-standing point is that the operational motion of handwriting has a special role in word encoding and retrieving, indicating that word representation may consist of a handwriting movement component. If so, highly frequent use of keyboarding may change the mental representation of words and further affect word learning. Thus, it is highly possible that performance in learning new Chinese characters with Pinyin keyboarding（which is widely used among Chinese teenagers） is worse than with handwriting. Further, the movement memory codes of learned characters may be weakened because of long-time Pinyin keyboarding and lack of handwriting track feedback. In addition, the glyphs of Chinese characters will be more likely to be forgotten when reviewed with Pinyin input than with handwriting. To test the above propositions, we compared Chinese character learning and retention between two groups of 6 graders, with one group using paper-pen writing and the other using Pinyin keyboarding. First, we used the traditional method to teach 2 classes of students 30 low-frequency characters in classrooms and participants were labeled as ＂mastered＂ or ＂un-mastered＂ according to their dictation performances. Then, these 2 classes were assigned randomly to practice with handwriting or Pinyin input. Thereafter, participants were instructed to practice with handwriting or Pinyin input once a week for six weeks and then tested in recognition and writing twice, one week and three months after the practice. We found that, in the first test, for the un-mastered group, the positive effects from the two practice methods were similar in recognition, but the writing performance after the handwriting practice was significantly better than that after the Pinyin keyboarding practice. For the mastered group, performances in recognition and writing after the two kinds of practices were similar and dictation and writing performances before and after the practice were also similar. In the second test, children＇s performances were similar after handwriting and Pinyin keyboarding practices in both recognition and writing. The results suggested that Chinese characters learned with Pinyin keyboarding practice were not more likely to be forgotten than characters learned with handwriting practice. In conclusion, although handwriting and Pinyin keyboarding practices have different positive effects on learning Chinese characters, i.e., similar positive effects in recognition but a greater effect for handwriting than Pinyin keyboarding in writing, they have the same positive effects on reviewing characters. This suggests that compared with English words, Chinese characters learning is more dependent on the feedback of handwriting movement, which may be related to spacial features of Chinese characters. These results also suggest that we may use Pinyin input to teach children to read Chinese characters and use traditional handwriting to teach them to write. In addition, memory retention of the mastered characters after the two practices are similar after an interval without practice, suggesting that character amnesia may not be caused by the Pinyin keyboarding specifically, but by a weakened orthographic code due to lack of practice of handwriting or Pinyin input on a long-term basis.