title: Riddle appreciation and reading comprehension in Cantonese-speaking children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Inference-making skills are necessary for reading comprehension. Training in riddle appreciation is an effective way to improve reading comprehension among English-speaking children. However, it is not clear whether these methods generalize to other writing systems. The goal of the present study was to investigate the relationship between inference-making skills, as measured by riddle appreciation ability, and reading comprehension performance in typically developing Cantonese-speaking children in the 4th grade.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty Cantonese-speaking children between the ages of 9;1 (years;months) and 11;0 were given tests of riddle appreciation ability and reading comprehension. Chinese character reading and auditory comprehension abilities were also assessed using tests that had been standardized in Hong Kong.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Regression analyses revealed that riddle appreciation ability explained a significant amount of variance in reading comprehension after variance due to character reading skills and auditory comprehension skills were first considered. Orthographic, lexical, morphological, and syntactic riddles were also significantly correlated with reading comprehension.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Riddle appreciation ability predicts reading comprehension in Cantonese-speaking 4th-grade children. Therefore, training Cantonese speakers in riddle appreciation should improve their reading comprehension.
authors.affiliation: Correspondence to Carol K. S. To: tokitsum@hku.hk.
authors.forename: Ivy N Y
authors.initials: IN
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Carol K S
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: To
authors.forename: Brendan S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Weekes
mesh_terms: D044466:Asian People / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002681:China; D032882:Comprehension / Q000145:classification*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D011932:Reading; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012660:Semantics; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014925:Wit and Humor as Topic; D014956:Writing
keywords: Chinese; decoding; inference; reading comprehension; riddles