Abstract
The ultimate purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanism of learning to read Japanese ideographs on the part of primary school children. In this paper is described the planning to construct learning materials and then the analysis of them.
1. The Ss chosen for testing meaningfulness and familiarity of two-syllable Japanese words are 150 children of the 5th grade in Ashikaga city, Tochigi Prefecture. For measuring meanigfulness, they are asked to write out the associated words when given a stimulus word of two syllables. For familiarity, they are asked to rate each of the 100 two-syllable words according to “Four-point rating scale”. Table 1 indicates production values (m) of meaningfulness. Table 2 indicates f-values, familiarity of the 100 words. The coefficient of the correlation between Tables 1 and 2 is 0.955, the regression line being Y'=1.23X+0.84.
2. The Ss chosen for testing meaningfulness and familiarity of figures are 171 children of the 5th grade in Ashikaga city. The procedure adopted is the same as above; Fig. 1 and Table 3 indicate production values (m) of figures. Fig. 2 and Table 4 indicate f-values. The coefficient of the correlation between Tables 3 and 4 is 0.880 and the regression line is Y'=1.20X+1.63, which is approximately the same as the regression line of the two-syllable words.
3. The experiment of paired-associate learning is planned to analyze the children's mechanism of learning to read Japanese ideographs. The Ss are 120 children of the 5th grade in Ashikaga city. Learning materials of paired-associates are figures (i. e. S's) and two-syllable words (i. e. R's). The results obtained are in this order: H (H=high familiarity)-H, L (L=Low familiarity)-H, H-L, and L-L. This indicates that high familiarity of two-syllable words is the most significant factor in effective learning. Similarly, high familiarity of figures plays an important role in effective learning.
