Enhancing Phonological Awareness in First and Second Language by Jyutping Training: Evidence From Cantonese-English Bilingual Children

Although a phonology-based coding system (i.e. Pinyin) is universally taught to beginning readers in mainland China, in Macau no such system is taught to children learning Cantonese. To examine whether providing such a system to Cantonese-speaking children is beneficial for reading development in both first (Cantonese) and second (English) language, the present study first attempted to implement a Cantonese phonology-based coding system (i.e. Jyutping) intervention with Cantonese-English bilingual children in Macau. Participants were 67 K3 children studying in a local kindergarten. Compared with the control group (N = 33, mean age 5.76 years), after five sessions of training, the children with Jyutping training (N = 34, mean age 5.85 years) showed a significant increase in Chinese and English phonological awareness at both syllable and phoneme levels. These results highlight the effectiveness of phonology-based coding systems in early literacy development and underscore the educational value of incorporating Jyutping instruction in kindergarten settings.