Character Alive: Designing and Evaluating a Tangible System to Support Children’s Chinese Radical and Character Learning

Abstract

Learning to read Chinese characters poses a considerable challenge for children, particularly those with dyslexia. We designed a tangible system, named Character Alive, to assist children aged 5 to 7 in mastering Chinese radicals and characters. The system employs animations and color cues to clarify the concepts of radicals and morphemes. It also incorporates physical radical cards that work in synergy with an artificial intelligence module to facilitate stroke tracing and character composition. We conducted a two-week within-group study involving 20 six-year-old children who used both our tangible system and an equivalent multitouch version to learn Chinese radicals and characters. The results showed that both systems significantly improved the children’s accuracy in character reading and composition. However, our tangible design outperformed the multitouch variant by increasing children’s learning motivation, enabling hands-on actions, and promoting a diverse range of beneficial learning strategies. We discuss the design implications for creating effective tangible systems to facilitate Chinese language acquisition among children.