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The role of parental literacy skills in cross-linguistic transfer, the phenomenon of the sharing of skills and competence from one language to another, is under-researched. The present study tested 147 Hong Kong Chinese children and their parents (76 boys; mean age = 7.16). Parental literacy skills significantly explained children's reading and spelling in English after controlling for socioeconomic status, highlighting the role of parental skills in facilitating children's second language development. Cross-linguistic transfers between Chinese and English were found between reading and writing after controlling for age, grade, non-verbal intelligence, and socioeconomic status. The results were replicated with another twin sample.

This study is a meta-analytical study that examines the effectiveness of gamification in learning performance in educational settings (n = 29; year-span = 2011-2019). Specifically, it aimed to investigate (a) whether gamification could improve learning performance, and (b) whether peer interaction (i.e., peer competition and peer collaboration) moderated the effectiveness of gamification in learning performance. Results from random-effects models showed significant effects of gamification in learning performance (g = 0.595, 95% CI [0.432, 0.758], N = 3515). This effect remained robust after excluding outliers and was stable in a sub-split analysis that excludes studies with low methodological rigor (i.e., studies with pre-post test design). Subgroup analyses revealed a moderating effect of peer competition in gamification in learning, suggesting that competitive games were better than non-competitive games for promoting learning performance in educational settings. However, this effect was not robust and no evidence of subgroup differences were found in the sub-split analysis. Peer collaboration did not moderate the effectiveness of gamification in learning as no subgroup differences were found between collaborative games and non-collaborative games. The effectiveness of games that were both competitive and collaborative did not differ from those that were only competitive. Other moderators such as education level and research design were also investigated. No subgroup differences were found for these two moderators. Educational implications and limitations were further discussed.

The development of efficient and reliable online assessments has become increasingly important in the digital era. We developed a 10-min online word reading assessment of global English based on the existing paper-and-pencil version of our English silent word reading test. The test includes two parts, namely, random word recognition and contextual word reading. A total of 889 participants (437 children and 392 adults; 62.7% female) took part in the study. They were from various regions including mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Poland, the United States, and the Philippines. Reliability and validity analyses on various demographics samples (by age and country/region of origin) demonstrated that the WordSword Test is highly reliable and valid (e.g., the correlation of this test with other English reading measures were above.80). Education level was positively correlated with test performance, while the correlations between age and test performance were not consistent. Ninety-seven children participants also took the paper-and-pencil version of the WordSword Test. The correlation between performances on the online and paper-and-pencil versions of the test was.879, one year apart. With more children and adults taking the WordSword Test, we ultimately hope to establish norms by area, grade level, and age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way in which different cities teach children to read in Chinese may have an impact on the skills they later utilize to acquire English word reading skills. This study examined the relative contributions of several cognitive–linguistic measures to English word reading for Chinese students learning English as a second language in two Chinese cities, one whose school system teaches Pinyin (Beijing) and one whose school system does not teach Pinyin (Hong Kong). Students in grades 2–3 completed measures on Chinese morphological awareness (MA), Chinese phonological awareness (PA), Pinyin writing, and English word reading. In the Beijing group, it was found that PA (β = 0.334, p < 0.01) and Pinyin (β = 0.257, p < 0.05) were significant predictors of English word reading. In contrast, in the Hong Kong group, only MA (β = 0.263, p < 0.05) was found to be a significant predictor of English word reading. The difference in predictors could be due to the availability of a phonological tool (Pinyin) for the Beijing students when learning Chinese, while the Hong Kong group may have relied more heavily on learning using MA and rote memory techniques. Overall, the results from this study provide data supporting the benefits of having a phonological tool like Pinyin for Chinese children when learning to read in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]