Inserting spaces into Chinese text helps readers to learn new words: An eye movement study

We examined whether inserting spaces between words in Chinese text would help children learn to read new vocabulary. We recorded adults’ and 7- to 10-year-old children’s eye movements as they read new 2-character words, each embedded in four explanatory sentences (the learning session). Participants were divided into learning subgroups – half read word spaced sentences, and half read unspaced sentences. In the test session participants read the new words again, each in one new sentence; here, all participants read unspaced text. In the learning session, participants in the spaced group read the new words more quickly than participants in the unspaced group. Further, children in the spaced group maintained this benefit in the test session (unspaced text). In relation to three different models of Chinese lexical identification, we argue that the spacing manipulation allowed the children to form either stronger connections between the two characters’ representations and the corresponding, novel word representation, or to form a more fully specified representation of the word itself.

► We examined the effect of inserting spaces between words in Chinese text.
► Adults and children learned new vocabulary presented as spaced or unspaced text.
► Their eye movements were measured as they read sentences containing the new words.
► The new words were read faster when being learned in spaced sentences.
► This learning benefit persisted when words were later presented in unspaced text for children but not adults.