Cognitive Processing Based Curriculum for the Facilitation of Chinese as a Second Language Young Learners’ Chinese Character Learning

Our three-year longitudinal study investigating the developmental orthographic awareness of Chinese characters among K1 to K3 CSL kindergarteners revealed that single character reading is a significant longitudinal predictor of their radical awareness development. It also laid a foundation for the learning of Chinese character meanings. Based on such the findings, a cognitive processing based curriculum aims at strengthening their orthographic awareness has been designed to facilitate their Chinese character learning has been developed. This chapter introduces the rationale of the curriculum design, learning objectives, teaching materials, as well as various pedagogies and learning activities and how they help to facilitate the development of CSL kindergarteners’ orthographic awareness.