1990 Volume 4 Pages 1-18
A boy was taught to read kanji (Chinese characters) by a "whole word 100k-say" training program, starting when he was 26 months old. When he was three years old, his reading development and his ability to make compound kanji words was examined. (a) He read a word or a compound word aloud more quickly when it was written in kanji or in a mixture of kanji and hiragana (Japanese script) than when it was written entirely in hiragana. (b) At first sight, he read aloud 64% of sentences written in a mixture of kanji and hiragana. (c) He made 57 compound words by combining 100 single kanji characters by himself. In Japan, it is generally believed that kanji should not be taught until a child has gained complete mastery of hiragana. The present results indicate, however, that the teaching of kanji reading may begin as early as the age of 2 : 2,and that such early learning gives a child an initial advantage in more complicated reading skills. The traditional method of teaching kanji should be reconsidered.
