On the writing of chinese characters among children

Abstract

Problem: In the elementary school of Japan 1362 Chinese characters are taught to our children during the course from grade 1 to 6. But we are greatly disappointed to find that they can correctly write only 600 characters even at the end of the elementary education. This investigation aims to find out the reason why the learning of the Chinese character is so difficult. Method: The subjects were about 30 school-children per grade. They had to copy from 83 to 336 characters in the readers respective to their grades one by one carefully as good as they could. Work-limit method was used. Results: It was found that the school-children made many mistakes. The degree of occurence of mistakes was smaller than when writing from memory, but the tendency was the same. We can consider from this point why the Chinese characters are so easily mistaken for both writing from memory and copying. Such a learning difficulty of Chinese characters is considered to base upon the following: 1) As the Chinese character is an ideograph, but not a phonograph, it does not need syllabification in reading and writing. So that it is apt to be recognized as a unitary whole (Gestaltqualität). 2) When we read or write the Chinese character, total impression dominates and detailed architecture becomes negligible. This is the essential condition for iniswriting of Chinese characters. 3) In addition, Chinese characters are always used in Japan with Kana-letters which are more completed. The contrast effect strengthens the Gestalt-tendency of Chinese character. This is a promotive condition for iniswriting of Chinese characters. Therefore from a psychological point of view many miswritings of Chinese characters are not groundless. © 1938, The Japanese Psychological Association. All rights reserved.