Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Relations of Vocabulary and Cognitive Skills With Reading Performance of North Korean Students in South Korean Schools

  • Published:
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We examined if North (n = 123) and South Korean (n = 123) children in Grades 3 to 8 studying in South Korea differ in their reading, vocabulary, and literacy-related cognitive skills, and whether language and literacy-related skills contribute to reading outcomes differently among North and South Korean children. The results showed that South Korean students performed better in syllable deletion, RAN-Letters, vocabulary, decoding fluency, and reading comprehension after controlling for age and SES. No differences were observed in phonological awareness, RAN-Digits, and visual processing tasks. A multigroup path analysis showed that phonological awareness and vocabulary were more strongly associated with decoding fluency for the South than the North Korean students, whereas the opposite was true for visual processing. The results suggest that South Korean vocabulary knowledge may be a significant factor in addressing the academic difficulties facing North Korean children in South Korean schools and that it is important to consider linguistic characteristics when examining the variations in reading skills and vocabulary knowledge of North Korean students in South Korean schools. These findings have implications for North Korean children’s literacy instruction in South Korean schools.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ban, S. J. (2018). Manual for Guidance Teacher of NKn Youth Defector Rev. ed. (CRM 2018-73). Seoul, Korea: Korean Educational Development Institute

  • Berninger, V. W., Abbott, R. D., Vermeulen, K., & Fulton, C. M. (2006). Paths to reading comprehension in at-risk second-grade readers. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 39(4), 334–351

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Byeon, J. H. (2018). 105 (Baek O) Tank and 105 (Baek Kong O) Tank. The joint Board of South and NK for the Compilation of Gyeoremal-keunsajeon (Nuri-pan). Korea: Seoul

    Google Scholar 

  • Cho, J. R. (2009). Syllable and letter knowledge in early Korean Hangul reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101, 938–947. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016212

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cho, J. R., & Chiu, M. M. (2015). Rapid naming in relation to reading and writing in Korean (Hangul), Chinese (Hanja) and English among Korean children: A 1-year longitudinal study. Journal of Research in Reading, 38(4), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12020

  • Cho, J. R., & Lee, J. Y. (2010). Transfer of phonological and morphological awareness to reading in English and logographic Hanja among Korean children. Journal of Cognitive Science, 11, 57–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cho, J. R., & McBride-Chang, C. (2005). Correlates of Korean Hangul acquisition among kindergartners and second graders. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9, 3–16

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cho, J. R., McBride-Chang, C., & Park, S. G. (2008). Phonological awareness and morphological awareness: Differential associations to regular and irregular word recognition in early Korean Hangul readers. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 21, 255–274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Choe, S. H. (2006). August 30). Koreas: Divided by a common language. The New York Times

  • Choi, K. J., Kwak, J. M., Chae, K. H., & Park, C. S. (2011). A study on children of residents escaping from NK born in a third country and adolescents escaping from NK without parents’ school adaptation & support. North Koran Refugees Foundation

  • Chung, B. H., Chung, J. K., & Lee, H. K. (2006). A study on educational support systems for NKn migrants in SK. Seoul, Korea: Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development

    Google Scholar 

  • Chung, K. C. (2006). (The) Effects of applying direct instruction principles to the Han-Geul reading program (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Seoul University, Seoul, Korea

  • Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1991). Tracking the unique effects of print exposure in children—cassociations with vocabulary, general knowledge, and spelling. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(2), 264–274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1997). Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 934–945

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, F. B. (1944). Fundamental factors in reading comprehension. Psychometrika, 9, 185–197

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Jong, P. F., & van der Leij, A. (2002). Effects of phonological abilities and linguistic comprehension on the development of reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 6(1), 51–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gardner, M. F. (1996). Test of visual-perceptual skills (non-motor)–revised. New York: Psychological and Educational Publications

    Google Scholar 

  • Georgiou, G. K., Parrila, R., & Papadopoulos, T. C. (2008). Predictors of word decoding and reading fluency in English and Greek: a cross-linguistic comparison. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100 (3), 566–580

  • Han, Y. H. (2015). Vocabulary after the division of North and SK. Forum for Korean Contemporary History, 6(0), 52–70

    Google Scholar 

  • Huang, H. S., & Hanley, J. R. (1995). Phonological awareness and visual skills in learning to read Chinese and English. Cognition, 54, 73–98

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Inoue, T., Georgiou, G., Muroya, N., Maekawa, H., & Parrila, R. (2017). Cognitive predictors of literacy acquisition in syllabic Hiragana and morphographic Kanji. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 30, 1335–1360. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-017-9726-4

  • Keenan, J. M., Betjemann, R. S., & Olson, R. K. (2008). Reading comprehension tests vary in the skills they assess differential dependence on decoding and oral comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 12(3), 281–300

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, S., Cho, J. R., & Kim, J. Y. (2015). Cross-language transfer of phonological awareness and its relations with reading and writing in Korean and English. Korean Journal of Cognitive Science, 26(2), 125–146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, Y. S. (2007). Phonological awareness and literacy skills in Korean: An examination of the unique role of body–coda units. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 67–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, Y. T., Hong, G. H., & Kim, K. H. (2009). Content and reliability analyses of the receptive and expressive vocabulary test (REVT). Korean Journal of Communication Disorders, 14, 34–45

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, Y. S. (2009). The foundation of literacy skills in Korean: The relative contribution of letter-name knowledge and phonological awareness and their interrelationship in Korean. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 22, 907–931

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, Y. S. (2010). Componential skills of spelling in Korean. Scientific Studies of Reading, 14, 137–158

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, Y. S. (2011). Considering linguistic and orthographic features in early literacy acquisition: Evidence from Korean. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 36, 177–189

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, Y. S. G. (2015). Developmental, component-based model of reading fluency: An investigation of predictors of word-reading fluency, text-reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 50(4), 459–481

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Kline, R. B. (2015). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (4th ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Ko, Y. K. (1999). The linguistic culture of NK. Seoul: Seoul National University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Kwon, S. (2014). Real state of language use of Buk-han-ital-jumin (immigrants from NK) and direction of education support for them. Journal of Ehwa Korean Language and Literature, 34, 91–123

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, H. B. (1990). Differences in language use between North and SK. International Journal of Sociology of Language, 82, 71–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Y. J. (2008). A study on the development of word reading skills among children in a rural area (NURI Report). Kongju, Korea: Kongju National University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • McBride-Chang, C., Chow, B. W. Y., Zhong, Y. P., Burgess, S., & Hayward, W. (2005). Chinese character acquisition and visual skills in two Chinese scripts. Reading and Writing, 18, 99–128

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ministry of Unification (2014, October). The status of NKn defectors entering SK. Seoul, Korea. Retrieved from the Ministry of Unification website: http://www.unikorea.go.kr/content.do?cmsid=1518

  • Ministry of Unification (2018). The status of NKn defectors entering SK. Seoul, Korea

  • Muter, V., Hulme, C., Snowling, M. J., & Stevenson, J. (2004). Phonemes, rimes, vocabulary, and grammatical skills as foundations of early reading development: Evidence from a longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 40(5), 665–681

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (1998–2017). Mplus user’s guide (8th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén

  • Nag, S., & Snowling, M. J. (2012). Reading in an alphasyllabary: Implications for a language universal theory of learning to read. Scientific Studies of Reading, 16(5), 404–423

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nagy, W. E., & Scott, J. A. (2000). Vocabulary processes. In M. L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (3 vol., pp. 269–284). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum

    Google Scholar 

  • North Korean Language Review Committee. (1966). Compendium of Korean Language Norms in North Korea (Chosun-mal Kyubomjip). Academy of Social Sciences Publisher: Pyongyang

  • Ouellette, G. P. (2006). What’s meaning got to do with it: The role of vocabulary in word reading and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 554–566

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pan, D. J., Yang, X., Lui, K. F. H., Lo, J. C. M., McBride, C., & Ho, C. S. H. (2021). Character and word reading in Chinese: Why and how they should be considered uniquely vis-a-vis literacy development. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 65, 101961. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2021.101961

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Park, C. H. (2009). Visual processing of Hangul, the Korean script. In C. Lee, et al. (Ed.), The handbook of East Asian psycholinguistics (pp. 379–389). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Parrila, R., Kirby, J. R., and McQuarrie, L. (2004). Articulation rate, naming speed, verbal short-term memory, and phonological awareness: longitudinal predictors of early reading development. Scientific Studies of Reading, 8 (1), 3–26

  • Perfetti, C. A. (1985). Reading ability. New York: Oxford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Protopapas, A., Mouzaki, A., Sideridis, G. D., Kotsolakou, A., & Simos, P. G. (2013). The role of vocabulary in the context of the simple view of reading. Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 29(2), 168–202

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Satorra, A., & Bentler, P. (2001). A scaled difference chi-square test statistic for moment structure analysis. Psychometrika, 66, 507–514

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seigneuric, A., & Ehrlich, M. F. (2005). Contribution of working memory capacity to children’s reading comprehension. Reading and Writing, 18, 617–656

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shin, M. S., & Kwon, S. H. (2011). A proposal of Korean vocabulary education for North Korean refugee. Journal of the International Network for Korean Language and Culture, 8(2), 57–89

    Google Scholar 

  • Shin, S. W., Cho, S. C., Lee, J. B., & Chungh, D. S. (2003). Standardization of word/nonword reading test and letter-symbol discrimination task for the diagnosis of developmental reading disability. Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 14, 81–94

    Google Scholar 

  • Shin, S. Y., & Kim, S. A. (2017). Character teaching for young Korean learners of Chinese as a foreign language: Implications of research on how native Chinese children learn to read. Han-character and Classical Written Language Education, 42, 139–163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Siok, W. T., & Fletcher, P. (2001). The role of phonological awareness and visual– orthographic skills in Chinese reading acquisition. Developmental Psychology, 37, 886–899

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sohn, H. M. (1999). The Korean language. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • The Institute for Unification Education, Ministry of Unification (2012). 2012 Understanding

  • Seoul, N. K. (Ed.). Korea. Retrieved from http://www.uniedu.go.kr

  • The National Institute of Korean Language (2006). The Sejong Corpus

  • Thorndike, R. L. (1973). Reading comprehension education in fifteen countries. New York: Wiley

    Google Scholar 

  • Tunmer, W. E., & Chapman, J. W. (2012). The simple view of reading redux: Vocabulary knowledge and the independent components hypothesis. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 45(5), 453–466. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219411432685

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wijaythilake, M. A. D. K., Parrila, R., Inoue, T., & Nag, S. (2019). Cognitive predictors of word reading in Sinhala. Reading and Writing, 32 (7), 1881–1907. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-018-9927-5

  • Won, J. S., Suh, H., Lee, J. B., & Kwon, S. H. (2011). Development of the Korean as a second language (KSL) curriculum for students with a multi-cultural background (CR 2011-55-7). Seoul: Korean Educational Development Institute

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodcock, R. W. (1997). Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery. Itasca, IL: Riverside

    Google Scholar 

  • Yoon, H. K. (1997). A study on the Hangul reading development: Acquisition of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rule (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Pusan National University, Pusan, Korea

Download references

Funding

No funding was received for conducting this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Kongju National University, 56 Gongjudaehak-Ro Gongju-si Chungcheongnam-do, 32588, Gongju, Korea

    Jeongsuk Jang

  2. Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Rauno Parrila

  3. Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong

    Tomohiro Inoue

Authors
  1. Jeongsuk Jang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rauno Parrila
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tomohiro Inoue
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeongsuk Jang.

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Written informed consent was obtained from the parents/legal guardians.

Ethics Approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by The Human Research Ethics Boards of University of Alberta (Feb 17, 2016/No.Pro00062059).

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jang, J., Parrila, R. & Inoue, T. Relations of Vocabulary and Cognitive Skills With Reading Performance of North Korean Students in South Korean Schools. J Psycholinguist Res 52, 241–259 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-022-09855-x

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-022-09855-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation