This study investigated the roles of associative learning and linguistic knowledge, in particular phonological and semantic knowledge, in word learning of Chinese readers using a cross-sectional design. Extending past research in associative learning using existing Chinese characters as word stimuli, this study resorted to pseudowords and invented…

Submits that children recognize their first words in a different way than they later decode. Compares the hypothesis that sight words are recognized as wholes to the hypothesis that sight words are recognized as parts. Finds support for the idea that first words are recognized by "selective association." (BS)