Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- About the authors -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1. Introduction -- How many Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese? -- How are the three peoples related? -- Languages of the world -- Phoneme, syllable, onset-rime, and body-coda -- Morpheme and word -- Types of writing systems -- Writing systems, their development and interrelations -- Scripts and literacy: A preview -- Chinese, Korean, and Japanese in Roman letters -- A few words about experiments on reading -- How the book is organized -- Part I. Chinese -- China and Chinese -- 2. Spoken Chinese -- Standard language and "dialects" -- Sound system -- Morphemes: Words or word parts -- Constructing two-morpheme words -- Why compound words? -- Foreign loan words -- Full words, empty words, and classifiers -- Sentence structures -- 3. Chinese characters: Hanzi -- Beginning of characters -- Evolution of characters' styles -- Chinese calligraphy -- Six categories of characters -- Number of characters -- Strokes and shapes of characters -- Complex vs simple characters -- 4. Meaning representation in characters -- Pictographs and indicators -- Radicals and semantic radicals -- Characters tell stories -- Compound words and idioms -- Characters for abbreviations -- Chinese numerals -- Chinese personal names -- Magical quality of characters -- Characters understood across times and places -- 5. Sound representation by characters -- A character's sound -- Phonetic radicals -- Polyphonic, unpronounced, or homophonic characters -- Phonetic loans and Fanqie -- Phonetic scripts for Chinese -- 6. History of education and literacy in China -- Confucianism and Confucian classics -- The civil-service examination system -- Chinese world views -- Invention of paper and printing -- Books and publications.

Traditional and pre-1949 education -- In women ignorance was virtue -- History and degrees of literacy -- 7. Reforming spoken and written Chinese -- Mandarin and Putonghua (common speech) -- Literary vs vernacular language -- Rationalizing the Chinese writing system -- How characters are simplified -- Romanization, Zhuyin Fuhao, and Pinyin -- Computerizing Chinese characters -- Keep or abandon characters? -- 8. School, and learning to read in Chinese -- Primary and secondary schools: Growing, if unequally -- Tertiary education -- Should preschoolers be taught to read? -- How Hanzi are taught to preschoolers -- Teaching Hanzi (and English) in Chinese-speaking regions -- How Hanzi are taught in school in China -- Semantic radicals and phonetic radicals -- Phonological awareness -- Morphological (and phonological) awareness -- Visual and orthographic processing -- Developmental dyslexia or reading difficulty -- Summary and conclusions -- Part II. Korean -- Korea and Koreans -- 9. Korean language -- Speech sounds and syllables -- Korean native words -- Sino-Korean (S-K)words -- Native words vs Sino-Korean words -- European (and Japanese) loan words -- Numerals and classifiers -- Content words, grammatical morphemes, and sentences -- Speech levels and honorifics -- 10. Hancha: Chinese characters -- Hancha adoption -- Complicated Hancha use in the past -- Hancha use in the present -- Misguided attempts to abolish Hancha -- 11. Han'gŭl: Alphabetic syllabary -- Creation and adoption of Han'gŭl -- Han'gŭl as an alphabet -- Han'gŭl syllable blocks -- Varied shapes and complexity of syllable blocks -- Linear vs packaged arrangement of Han'gul letters -- Changes in Han'gŭl since its creation -- Was Han'gŭl an original creation? -- Han'gŭl, an alphabetic syllabary or alpha-syllabary -- 12. Learning and using Han'gŭl.

Teaching Han'gŭl as an alphabet or a syllabary -- Preschoolers learn Han'gul -- Schoolchildren learn to read in Han'gul -- Instruction in Han'gŭl spelling -- Han'gŭl spelling vs romanized spelling -- Phonological awareness and salience of syllable -- Morphological awareness -- Visual skills -- Poor readers in Han'gul -- 13. Why should Hancha be kept? -- Advantages of Hancha -- Disadvantages of not knowing Hancha -- Korean personal names -- Hancha-Han'gŭl mixed vs all-Han'gŭl text -- Hancha teaching in secondary school -- Streamline and keep Hancha -- 14. History of education and literacy in Korea -- Civil service examination in Korea -- Traditional education -- Modern education -- Education in S. Korea today -- Printing and publications -- Mass literacy -- Summary and conclusions -- Part III. Japanese -- Japan and Japanese -- 15. Japanese language -- Speech sounds, syllables, and moras -- Composition of Japanese vocabulary -- Japanese native vs Sino-Japanese (S-J) words -- European and English loan words -- Numerals and classifiers -- Content words and grammatical morphemes -- Sentence structures -- 16. Kanji: Chinese characters -- Indigenous Japanese scripts? -- Introduction and spread of Kanji -- Kanji uses in different times -- Kanji readings: On/Chinese and Kun/Japanese -- Two-Kanji words: Readings -- Kanji, Hancha, and Hanzi compared -- 17. Kana: Japanese syllabary -- Kana: Origin and development -- Kana graphs: Number and order -- How to use Kana -- Furigana or annotating Kana -- Katakana for foreign loan words -- 18. Rōmaji: Roman letters -- Rōmaji for European words and foreigners -- Rōmaji styles: Hepburn, Japanese, and Cabinet -- Should Rōmaji replace the Japanese scripts? -- Disadvantages of Rōmaji -- 19. Why keep Kanji? -- Kanji differentiate homophones -- Meanings of Kanji words are grasped well -- Kanji for compound words.

Kanji for technical terms and abbreviations -- Kanji stand out in mixed-script text -- Kanji for personal names -- Disadvantages of Kanji -- Typing and word processing -- Kanji use declined and then stabilized -- 20. History of mass literacy in Japan -- Early limited literacy -- Dawn of mass literacy -- Mass literacy after World War II -- History of books and publications -- Manga! Manga! -- 21. Learning and using Kanji and Kana -- Preschoolers acquire reading -- Kana and Kanji teaching in school -- Textbooks for reading instruction -- Kanji vs Kana: Naming and extracting meaning -- How well are Kanji read and written? -- Dyslexia or poor reading in Japanese -- 22. The Japanese educational system -- Primary and secondary school: Overview -- Preschool and primary school -- Middle and high school -- Tertiary education -- Japanese education: Problems and promises -- Summary and conclusions -- Part IV. Common issues -- 23. Eye movements and text writing in East Asia -- Eye movements in reading English text -- Eye movements in Chinese reading -- Eye movements in Japanese and Korean reading -- Conventions in writing/reading directions -- Punctuation marks and spacing -- Prose and paragraph structure -- 24. Reading and the brain -- Human brain: Structures and functions -- Brain processing when reading in Roman alphabets -- Brain processing when reading in East Asian scripts -- 25. East Asian students in international tests -- Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) -- Top Ten in the 2006, 2009, and 2012 assessments -- PISA results: Some details -- Factors that may not influence achievement -- Factors that influence achievement sometimes -- Factors that may matter -- 26. Logographic characters vs phonetic scripts -- Logography, alphabet, and syllabary -- Direct vs indirect access to meaning and sound.

Words in logography vs phonetic script: Reading aloud -- Logography vs phonetic script: Meaning extraction -- Flexible routes to sounds and meanings of words -- Logography vs phonetic script: Remembering -- Logography vs phonetic script: Learning to read -- Alphabet vs logography for science -- Effects of scripts and literacy on cognition -- Afterthoughts -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Name index -- Subject index.