Chinese educators have for centuries believed that having children repeatedly and meticulously copy Chinese characters and memorize the shape and strokes of each character is the most effective way of learning how to write Chinese. If the characters are presented in isolation or outside a meaningful context, there is a danger that the children will disregard the meanings of the characters, lose interest and become bored.This study looked at the learning of Chinese characters by 78 students, aged 4-6 years in Kindergarten 2 and 3, resented with Chinese characters within semantic networks emphasizing the meaning of the words. Learning clusters of words would hopefully help the hildren
acquire mental lexicons of related words. Evidence about the impact of this approach and the lesson activities on learning was gathered using
quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative analysis involved comparing pre-and post-test scores to examine the children’s knowledge and skills before and after learning. The qualitative evidence was assembled from interviews with teachers and through observing lessons. The students’ breadth of written and spoken vocabulary was examined to see how well the semantic networking had increased their lexicons of associated words. The qualitative analyses indicated that all of the students had improved their interest in learning Chinese characters and had become more active learners. They were more efficient language learners and knew much more about the semantics, phonology and graphics of Chinese characters than did peers taught in neighboring classes by conventional methods.