Literacy Development in East Asia

This chapter focuses on literacy development in East Asia, the eastern region of the Asian continent. Students in most East Asian countries perform well in literacy. However, migrant communities still face struggles, leading to fewer opportunities in the labor market. East Asia has a very long history of literary practice. With China being the largest and oldest country in East Asia, its writing system has a profound impact in the region. The modern Chinese writing system is used not only by the 1.4 billion people in Mainland China but also in Chinese-speaking regions such as Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. It is further used by Chinese-heritage speakers in Singapore, Malaysia, and countries around the world. However, most East Asian countries are biscriptal. This chapter starts out with an overview of the writing systems used in China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia, followed by a description of the educational system in relation to literacy in each country. In the remaining part of the chapter the focus is on individual variation, neurological foundations and environmental factors related to literacy development in Chinese. Finally, the chapter presents a comparison of the factors related to literacy development in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.