How do metalinguistic awareness skills influence Chinese reading comprehension from primary school to senior high school?

As a morphosyllabic writing system, Chinese requires readers to coordinate phonological, orthographic, and morphemic information. However, how these metalinguistic skills jointly support reading comprehension across a broad span of schooling remains unclear. This study examined the developmental pattern of phonological awareness (PA), orthographic knowledge (OK), and morphological awareness (MA) in Chinese reading comprehension from primary school to senior high school. Participants were 1,073 Chinese-speaking students from Beijing, including 223 fourth graders (Mage = 10.77, SD = 0.38), 318 sixth graders (Mage = 12.68, SD = 0.39), 314 eighth graders (Mage = 14.69, SD = 0.34), and 218 eleventh graders (Mage = 17.66, SD = 0.51). Students completed tasks assessing PA, OK, MA, and reading comprehension. Grade-specific regression models controlling for age and gender and relative weight analyses were used to examine the unique and relative contributions of PA, OK, and MA. Regression and relative weight analyses showed that OK was the strongest contributor to reading comprehension in Grade 4, but its relative contribution decreased sharply in later grades. The contribution of MA to reading comprehension increased from Grade 4 to Grade 6 and remained the largest contributor in Grades 8 and 11. PA was a comparatively stable correlate to reading comprehension across grades. The findings suggest that early reading comprehension appears to rely more strongly on orthographic knowledge, whereas morphological awareness becomes central from late primary school onward. These findings have important implications for aligning Chinese reading instruction with students’ developmental needs.