SEMANTIC, SYNTACTIC, sequential, systematic. There are fancy words aplenty in the field of reading education but are they helpful in identifying the best way forward when teaching Hong Kong's Cantonese-speaking children to read and write in English?
Unfortunately, the growing body of scientific research in this area has yet to have any real impact in Hong Kong education.
Deep in the recesses of the University of Hong Kong, ground-breaking brain research conducted by Dr Tan Li-hai shows there are significant differences in the way the human brain processes alphabetic written scripts, such as English, and non-alphabetic scripts, such as Chinese.
Thanks to the neurological discoveries of Dr Tan and his colleagues and the accumulated evidence from hundreds of other scientific studies of alphabetic reading over the past 20 years or more, the writing is clearly on the wall: alphabetic writing systems operate through direct connections between letters and sounds.
Many of these scientific studies have found their way into an authoritative new collection of reading research findings, published last month by Blackwell in the UK. Entitled The Science of Reading: A Handbook, the list of contributors reads like an international Who's Who of the psychology of reading.
It should be an essential reference work for anyone intending to provide advice on reading to classroom teachers and parents, especially those who work with bi-scriptal students. One entire section of the book is devoted to the reading skills demanded by different writing systems.