• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.15-28
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• 2009

This study focused on the comprehension of texts written either in Korean script (Hangul) or Chinese script (Hanja). For this purpose, we measured the reading time and the correct response in text comprehension tasks with 104 Korean-Chinese children who were either 10 or 19 years old. There was a main effect of script : The reading time of Hanja texts was shorter than that of Hangul or Hangul Hanja mixed texts. But the older subjects who spent the same reading time in both Hangul and Hanja texts showed the longer reading time in Hangul Hanja mixed texts revealing the interaction between age and script. The correct response rate on the comprehension task was the highest in Hangul text. The results were discussed in relation to the independent dual language processing systems in Korean-Chinese.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.289-293
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• 1996

In Korean, as with Kana and Kanji in Japanese, two kinds of word-writing systems--Hangul (the Korean alphabet) and Hanja (the Chinese character; Kanji in Japanese)--have been and still are being used. Hangul is phonetic while Hanja is ideographic. A phonetic alphabet represents the pronunciation of words, wheras ideographs are where a character of a writing system represents a concept. Aphasics suffer from language disorders following brain damage. The reading and writing of Hangul and Hanja by two Korean Broca's aphasics were analyzed with two goals. The first goal was to confirm the functional autonomy of reading and writing systems in the brain that has been argued by other researchers. The second goal was to reveal what difference the subjects show in reading and writing Hangul and Hanja. As experimental materials, 50 monosyllabic words were chosen in Hangul and Hanja respectively. The 50 word pairs of Hangul and Hanja have the same meaning and are also the most familiar monosyllabic words for a group of normal adults in their fifties and sixties. The errors that the aphasic subjects made in performing the experimental materials are analyzed and discussed here. This analysis has confirmed that reading and writing systems are located in different parts in the brain. Furthemore, it seems clear that the two writing systems of Hangul and Hanja have their own respective processes.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.161-177
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• 2009

In this study of the relationship between preschoolers' visual perception and reading Hangul words, the 287 participants showed significant developmental change in visual perception between three to five years of age. The researcher developed the computer-based screening Test of Visual Perception for Reading (TVPR). Factor analysis confirmed three factors of TVPR : perception of number, direction, and form constancy. These factors correlated highly with four factors of motor-reduced visual perception of the Korean Developmental Test of Visual Perception (Moon et al. 2003). All factors of TVPR explained reading real words and pseudo words; direction and form constancy perception predicted reading low frequency letters. These findings confirm that preschoolers' skills in visual perception contribute to the reading of words in Hangul.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.113-124
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• 2006

Korean children reading Hangul was studied in children between 2 and 5 years of age. Subjects were 400 young children in each age group from kindergartens or day care centers in 6 cities of Jeon-buk Province. Teachers used a checklist based on Lee, Cha-Suk(2003) to assess children's reading ability. Data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, and $x^2$ using SPSS 10.0 program. Results showed age differences in young children's reading of Hangul. Developmental levels consisted of looking at pictures because of absence of linguistic awareness about words, skipping pages of text without pictures, pronouncing phonemes, being aware of phonemes and of the difference between pictures and print, and knowing that the same phonemes can be applied to different words.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.145-155
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• 2005

This study was carried out to reveal Hangul acquisition processes in Korean-Chinese children who grow in a horizontal bilingual environment. In this experiment Grapheme substitution/deletion tasks and sensible/non-sensible Kulja reading tasks were administered to 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-year-old Korean-Chinese children growing up in a bilingual environment. Results were that Korean-Chinese children showed similar patterns of Hangul acquisition processes to Korean children but acquired grapheme-phoneme(G-P) correspondence earlier than Korean children. Hangul acquisition rates were 41.7%, 45.7%, 53% and 92.7% at age 3, 4, 5 and 6, respectively. Both Korean-Chinese and Korean children showed higher sensitivity for the final consonant than for the initial and middle consonants. Correlation between phoneme perception and reading was only significant among 6-year-olds in non-sensible Kulja reading tasks. Training in transforming ideographic Chinese to a phonetic system could effect early acquisition of G-P correspondence in Korean-Chinese children.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.73-95
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• 2007

Causal relationships of kindergarteners' phonological awareness and processing to their ability to read words was investigated with the participation of 289 4- to 6-year-old children attending three kindergartens in Busan. Results showed gradual growth in reading ability with age. Children performed best in reading words and poorest in reading low frequency letters. They showed continuous development in skills of syllable deletion, phoneme substitution, phoneme insertion, phonological memory and naming. Discontinuous development was found in counting syllables. Longer syllables were difficult to count, and middle syllables of 3 syllable words were hard to delete. Children had poor perception of final consonants of Consonant-Vowel-Consonant syllables. Children's phonological awareness and processing were latent variables strongly related to ability to read words written in Hangul.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.339-357
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• 2010

In this study we examined the context effects in reading Hangul (Korean alphabets) in normal and low vision, using the two different reading techniques, self-paced reading (Experiment 1) and rapid serial visual presentation (Experiment 2). We compared the reading speed of participants with normal or low vision in sentences vs. randomly ordered words. The results from both experiments showed that the reading speed of participants with low vision slowed significantly relative to those with normal vision. However, the patterns in the size of context effects were different in the two experiments. The context effects were larger in low vision than in normal vision in self-paced reading, but they were smaller in low vision than in normal vision in RSVP. This result indicates that context may make a greater contribution for readers with low vision than for readers with normal vision when sufficient time is allowed to read; in contrary, its contribution is smaller for readers with low vision than for readers with normal vision when there is time limitation for reading.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.325-353
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• 2016

The visual span refers to the number of letters that can be accurately recognized without moving one's eyes. The size of the visual span is affected by sensory factors such as perimetric complexity, crowding, and mislocation of letters. Korean Hangul utilizes rather unique alphabetic-syllabary writing system, quite different from English and Chinese writing systems. Due to this combinatorial nature of the script, the visual span for Hangul characters can also be affected by the letter type (e.g., CV vs CVCC). The present study examined the effect of syllable complexity on the visual span for Hangul by comparing letter recognition accuracy across four letter type conditions (C only, CV, CVC, and CVCC). We also aimed to determine the meaningful letter type(s) that is associated with differences in reading abilities in Korean. Using a trigram presentation method, we found that overall recognition accuracy declined as syllable complexity increased. However, the visual span for CVC type was greater than that for CV type, suggesting that the effect is not necessarily linear, and that there might be other factors affecting the visual span for these types of letters. C and CV type showed fairly strong positive correlations with reading comprehension, suggesting that these might be the meaningful units for measuring visual span in relating to reading abilities.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.25 no.3 s.87
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• pp.151-168
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate the causal relationship of kindergarteners' alphabet knowledge to their ability to read words, in connection with the features of the Korean alphabet 'Hangul'. A total of 289 children aged four to six from three kindergartens in Busan participated in the study. The main results are as follows. To begin with, the participants showed continuous development in the knowledge of consonant names, vowel sounds, the vowel stroke-adding principle, and the alphabet composition principle. Meanwhile, discontinuous development was found in the knowledge of consonant sounds and the consonant stroke-adding principle, which indicated that kindergartners could show differential speed in various sub-skills of literacy development. The kindergartners' naming of consonants developed before their recall of consonant sounds, and the knowledge of consonant sounds had an effect on the knowledge of vowel sounds. Children had difficulty in treating more complicated letters of the alphabet stroke-adding principle test, and eve syllables of the alphabet composition principle test. Most importantly, the children's alphabet knowledge was strongly related to their ability to read words written in Hangul, as kindergarteners with a greater knowledge of alphabet names, sounds, and principles were shown to read words better.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.15-27
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• 2006

The effects of the number of Hangul syllable, the nunber/location of batchim in a Hangul word, and compound/noncompound Hangul word on memory span were examined. The results were that (1) the more syllables a word had, the lower us memory span was, (2) the more batchims a two-syllable word had, the lower its memory span was (Korean batchim effect on memory span), (3) noncompound word had higher memory span than compound word. The reading speed of above mentioned words was measured and the results were that (1) the more syllables a word had, the slower its reading speed was, (2) but the reading speed of a two-syllable word was forest when it had a batchim on second syllable than when it had no batchim or had a batchim on first syllable or batchims on both syllables (Korean ending batchim effect on reading speed), (3) noncompound word was read faster thu compound word. Korean ending batchim effect on reading speed was not compatible with the explanation by articulatory loop bur compatible with the explanation by visual cache where the orthographic information was represented. The results suggest that memory span was influenced nor only by phonological information but also by orthographic information.