A VISUAL TRAINING DEVICE FOR LEARNING CHINESE

CHARACTER OF CHILDREN WITH

DEVELOPMENTAL DYSLEXIA

Hanae Yamazoe, Takashi Kawai

Global Information and Telecommunication Studies, Waseda University

1011 Okuboyama, Nishi-Tomida, Honjo-shi, Saitama , 367-0035, Japan

Masutomo Miyao

National Center for Child Health and Development, 2-10-1 Okura, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, 157-8535, Japan

Keywords: Developmental Dyslexia, Chinese character, Kanji, Visual Cognition, Web-based Learning.

Abstract: A visual training device (the visual training tool) has been developed to assist in the recognition and

understanding of Chinese characters (Kanji). The visual training tool presents that strokes of a Kanji

character are separated and reconstructed. The visual training tool method was more effective than the

traditional Japanese teaching methods for learning Kanji among Japanese children with developmental

dyslexia (Yamazoe et al., 2008). In the present study, we developed and evaluated the web-based visual

training tool for Japanese children with developmental dyslexia. The findings of the present study indicate

that the web-based visual training tool is effective for Japanese children with developmental dyslexia to

memorize and to write Kanji strokes.

1 INTRODUCTION

Developmental dyslexia is a specific impairment of

the ability to read and write which is neurobiological

in origin (Lyon et al., 2003). In some English-

speaking countries, dyslexia affects about 5 to 10

percent of the population (Shaywitz, 1996). It is a

phonological deficit characterized by difficulty in

associating spoken sounds (phonemes) as

represented in written language. One of the deficits

in children with developmental dyslexia involves the

ability to analyze component phonemes of words,

sometimes referred to as phonemic awareness.

Japanese writing system is very different from that

of English. Japanese researchers generally attribute

these reading and writing impairments among

children to visual processing problems (Uno &

Kamibayashi, 1998) rather than phonological

processing problems.

The Japanese writing system consists of two

qualitatively different scripts: Kanji and Kana. Kanji

is both logographic and morphographic and is

derived from Chinese characters. Kana consists of

two syllabic forms, Hiragana and Katakana, which

are derived from Kanji (Sampson, 1985). These

three scripts are used to write different classes of

words. The commonly used method for teaching

Japanese children involves the teacher

demonstrating the stroke order of the characters, and

then the children repeatedly write the same exact

stroke order. Kanji contains the largest amount of

characters among the three scripts. During the six

years of primary school education in Japan, children

are introduced to 1,006 different Kanji characters.

Each character of Kanji contains specific stroke

orders. On average, there are about 12 strokes in the

Kanji characters designated for common use in

Japan. The stroke order for Kanji characters is

generally fixed; therefore, it is very important for

children to learn the proper stroke order. Japanese

children with developmental dyslexia face a

monumental challenge of learning a large number of

kanji characters. Individuals with developmental

dyslexia have difficulties with separating Kanji

characters into components, patterns, or strokes.

Japanese children with developmental dyslexia

struggle with understanding the aggregated structure

386

Yamazoe H., Kawai T. and Miyao M..

A VISUAL TRAINING DEVICE FOR LEARNING CHINESE CHARACTER OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DYSLEXIA.

DOI: 10.5220/0003327803860389

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2011), pages 386-389

ISBN: 978-989-8425-49-2

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

of Japanese characters. These factors are believed to

contribute to impeding the acquisition of literacy

skills. Traditional Japanese teaching methods may

not be suitable for Japanese children with

developmental dyslexia. Japanese children with

developmental dyslexia have more problems writing

Kanji rather than reading Kanji.

Recently, computers have been used to assist

students with developmental disabilities to improve

their languages skills (Johnson et al.,1987; Torgesen

& Young, 1983). The widespread use of computers

in Japanese primary school education now enables

computer-assisted training in Japanese language

writing for children with developmental dyslexia.

Through computer-based teaching and learning,

children be able to effectively acquire various

language skills. While many computer-assisted

Kanji-learning systems are available in Japan

(Komori & Zimmerman, 2001; Takesue et al.,

2005), the most commonly used systems include: the

model character being displayed with the stroke

order information; or the stroke order of the Kanji

characters is animated. These system present two

challenges. First, they require the users to physically

write the Kanji characters while looking at the

model. The users must repeatedly write the

characters until they learn them. Second, the speed

of the animated Kanji characters cannot be adjusted,

which presents difficulty to individuals with

developmental dyslexia who have been shown to be

less sensitive to motion stimuli and psychophysical

integration (Raymond, 1998).

Studies have shown that people with

developmental dyslexia possess impressive talents in

various fields (Shaywitz, 2005). The authors of the

present study focused on one of those talents, which

is phenomenal visuo-spatial recognition ability (von

Károlyi et al., 2003). Children with developmental

dyslexia are able to recognize the structures of

hiragana characters much easier in a literacy

learning using visuo-spatial recognition (Yamazoe et

al., 2009). The authors have developed a visual

training device (visual training tool) to present Kanji

characters on a computer (Yamazoe et al., 2008) that

uses neither animated Kanji characters, nor writing

repetition. The visual training tool separates the

Kanji character into individual strokes, and then the

strokes are reconstructed (see Figure 1). The results

suggested the possibility of subdividing a Kanji

character as a tool for Japanese children with

developmental dyslexia to learn to write Kanji

characters (Yamazoe et al., 2008). The aim of this

study is to test the efficacy of web-based visual

training tool in the literacy learning of Kanji

characters. In the present study, we propose the

advantage of using the visual training tool with web-

based learning to assist Japanese children with

developmental dyslexia in learning Kanji characters.

2 METHOD

2.1 Visual Training Tool

The visual training tool made for learning through

web-based. The user of a web browser is able to

request for Kanji leraning of web pages by accessing

the visual training tool site. Figure 1 shows the

visual training tool. Two sessions were prepared.

The first session displays the target Kanji

information, and the second sessions presents the

visual training (see Figure 1). The subject uses the

mouse to operate the control buttons on the screen.

In the first session, the subject learns how the

character is read, how many strokes are used, and

the context in which the character is used. The

numbers indicate the stroke order, and the arrows

display the brushstroke direction. In the second

session, the subject uses the mouse to drag and drop

the strokes into a square frame one by one to

reconstruct the character(see Figure 1 No.2, 3). The

correct answer is appeared by clicking the answer

button (see Figure 1 No.4) The subject repeats this

sequence five times. This repetition is intended to

enhance the subject’s memorization of the stroke

forms and positions. Adobe Flash CS4 was used to

create the visual training tool.

1 2

3 4

Figure 1: Visual training tool.

The panels represent the visual training tool used in this

study. The panels show an example of in

the visual training session.

A VISUAL TRAINING DEVICE FOR LEARNING CHINESE CHARACTER OF CHILDREN WITH

DEVELOPMENTAL DYSLEXIA

387

2.2 Participants

One girl and two boys (Boy 1, Boy 2) with

developmental dyslexia (mean age = 10 years)

participated in this study. The children and their

parents agreed to participate in the study after being

given a brief description of the experiment. These

children had encountered difficulty learning to write

kanji using traditional Kanji teaching methods.

These children have above average intelligence

(participant mean full scale WISC IQ of 124,

SD=15.9), but they had not yet acquired the Kanji

writing skill level comparable to children of their

same grade. They could not write the Kanji

characters that were used in this experiment.

2.3 Experimental Setup

The experimental setup included a computer at home

for each participant to provide the means of

delivering the visual training tool online access.

Eight different Kanji characters were selected for

each child in this experiment (see Table 1). Each

participant had not previously mastered these Kanji

characters. Participants of a web browser are able to

request for the target Kanji characters of web pages

by accessing the experimental visual training tool

site.

Table 1: Target Kanji characters for each participant.

Participan

Target Kanji characters

Girl

Boy1

Boy2

2.4 Procedure

This study consisted of three main parts: pre-test,

Kanji learning with the visual training tool, and post-

tests. The pre-test and post-tests assessed the ability

to write the target Kanji characters for each

participant. During the pre-test, the target Kanji

characters were read aloud and then the participants

were asked to write the characters. The second step

involved each participant learning the target Kanji

characters using the visual training tool with the

participant’s home computer. Participants learned

one Kanji character each week during two weekly

sessions for a period of eight weeks with the visual

training tool. In the post-tests, once again the target

Kanji characters were read aloud and the participants

were asked to write characters. The post-tests were

conducted one month after the experiment, and

again two months after the experiment. After the

post-tests, the participants were interviewed and then

provided several comments about the visual training

tool.

3 RESULTS

Figure 2 shows the results. The horizontal axis

represents the measure of writing skill, and the

vertical axis indicates the percentage of correct

answers. The girl who had no correct answers in the

pre-test scored 75 percent in both post-test 1 and

post-test 2 (i.e., answering six out of eight characters

correctly). Boy 1 who had no correct answers in the

pre-test scored 88 percent in post-test 1 (i.e.,

answering seven out of eight characters correctly),

and 75 percent in post-test 2 (i.e., answering six out

of eight characters correctly). Boy 2 who had no

correct answers in the pre-test scored 88 percent in

both post-test 1 and post-test 2 (i.e., answering seven

out of eight characters correctly). The effectiveness

of the proposed visual training tool was evaluated by

One-way ANOVA. The post-test1 and 2 were

significantly different from the pre-test (p < 0.01).

There was no significant difference between post-

test 1 and post-test 2. As a results, under the

conditions of the visual training tool after the pre-

test, all three participants showed a significant

improvement of correct answers in both post-test 1

and post-test 2. In the interview conducted after the

post-tests, the participants had several comments

about the visual training tool. The comments

include: “It was easier to learn Kanji with the visual

training tool than with traditional methods,” “I could

learn the structure of Kanji with the visual training

tool,” “It was fun learning Kanji with the visual

training tool,” and “I was able to memorize the

Kanji with the visual training tool.”

Figure 2: Percentage of correct answers for each participant.

CSEDU 2011 - 3rd International Conference on Computer Supported Education

388

4 CONCLUSIONS

The purposes of the present study were to evaluate:

1) the advantage of using the visual training tool for

teaching Kanji characters; and 2) the effectiveness of

the visual training tool for retaining Kanji characters

in the long-term memory (eight weeks) of Japanese

children with developmental dyslexia. Figure 2

shows that the percentage of correct answers was a

significantly higher in both post-test 1 and post-test

2. The data suggest that subdividing the strokes of

the Kanji characters and then reconstructing the

strokes reinforce the memorization of Kanji

characters. The improvement of their long-term

memory (eight weeks) was attributed to the web-

based training method of retrieving and

reconstructing the stroke order. This method not

only improves acquisition of Kanji but also it is

more enjoyable for children with developmental

dyslexia.

Stromer et al. (1996) studied the effectiveness of

a computer-based word construction procedure to

teach spelling to the individuals with mental

retardation and hearing impairments. In their study,

the subjects were first instructed to match sample

pictures with the correct printed words, and then

reconstructed the correct word by selected the letters

from a ten-letter anagram. Stromer et al. reported

that the subjects improved not only their anagram

spelling but also their writing performance as well.

The present visual training tool study confirmed the

results of the Stromer et al study; i.e., web-based

procedures are useful for teaching Kanji as well as

the alphabet.

The present study demonstrated the effectiveness

of the visual training tool to retain Kanji characters

in long-term memory (eight weeks). To further

improve the visual training tool, the authors are

currently planning to evaluate the potential of

longer-term memory (over eight weeks) of Kanji

characters for Japanese children with developmental

dyslexia. We also plan to investigate the

effectiveness of the visual training tool on Chinese

children with developmental dyslexia and foreign

students of Japanese as a second language.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was partially supported by the Japan

Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the

Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows. The authors are

grateful to the participants for their involvement in

these experiments.

REFERENCES

Johnson, G., Gersten, R., & Carnine, D. (1987). Effects of

instructional design variables on vocabulary

acquisition of LD students: A study of computer-

assisted instruction. Journal of Learning Disabilities,

20, 206-213.

Komori, S. & Zimmerman, E. (2001). A Critique of

Web-based Kanji Learning Programs for Autonomous

Learners: Suggestions for Improvements for

WWKanji. Computer Assisted Language Learning,

14(1), 43-67.

Lyon, G. R., Shaywitz, S. E. & Shaywitz, B. A. (2003). A

Definition of Dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 53, 1-14.

Raymond, J. E. & Sorensen, R. E. (1998). Visual Motion

Perception in Children with Dyslexia: Normal

Detection but Abnormal Integration, Visual Cognition,

5(3), 389-404.

Sampson, G., (1985). Writing Systems. Stanford, CA:

Stanford University Press.

Shaywitz, S. E. (1996). Dyslexia. Scientific American,

275(5), 98-104.

Shaywitz, S.E. (2005). Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and

Complete Science-Based Program for Reading

Problems at Any Level. New York: Random House

Inc.

Stromer, R., Mackay, H. A., Howell, S. R., McVay, A. A.

& Flusser, D. (1996). Teaching computer-based

spelling to individuals with developmental and hearing

disabilities: transfer of stimulus control to writing

tasks. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 295, 25-

42.

Tatsuoka, R. & Yoshimura, M. (1996). Development of A

Kanji Learning System for Foreign Students or

Elementary Students, IEICE technical report.

Education technology, 96 (96), 103-110. (in Japanese)

Torgesen, J. K., &Young, K. A. (1983). Priorities for the

use of microcomputers with learning disabled

children. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 16, 234-

237.

Uno, A., & Kambayashi, Y. (1998). Learning disabled

child showing writing disorders with ADHD:

Cognitive neuropsychological investigation about

writing disorders. Child Psychiatry and Neurology, 38,

117-123. (in Japanese)

von Károlyi, C, Winner, E, Gray, W & Sherman GF.

(2003). Dyslexia linked to talent:Global visual-spatial

ability, Brain and Language, 85, 427-431.

Yamazoe(Ikeshita), H., Kawai, T. & Miyao, M. (2008). A

Visual training tool for Cognitive Improvement for

Kanji Writing, Japan Journal of Educational

Technology, 32(Suppl.), 13-16. (in Japanese)

Yamazoe (Ikeshita), H, Mitsuya, R, Kawai, T, Sato, T,

Yamagata, H, Yamazaki, T & Miyao, M. (2009). The

Effect of using Stereoscopic in a Literacy Learning

System for Children with Developmental Dyslexia,

Educational Technology Research, 32, 53-60.

A VISUAL TRAINING DEVICE FOR LEARNING CHINESE CHARACTER OF CHILDREN WITH

DEVELOPMENTAL DYSLEXIA

389