Integrating Theoretical Perspectives: Whether and How Music Training Improves Chinese Word Reading

Integrating Theoretical Perspectives: Whether and How Music Training Improves Chinese Word Reading

Professor William Choi
Unit of Human Communication Learning, and Development (HCLD)
Faculty of Education, HKU

June 10, 2026 (Wednesday)
15:00 - 16:15
By Zoom
Chair: Professor Qiaoping Zhang

Abstract:
Learning music seems unrelated to reading development. However, research has found that music training improves word reading in alphabetic languages. In the past decade, the segmental phonological awareness account has been proposed to explain this music-to-language transfer effect. My team and I are intrigued by two questions. First, does the beneficial effect of music training on word reading apply to Chinese, whose script is not alphabetic? If so, does the segmental phonological awareness account alone suffice to explain this effect in Chinese? In this seminar, I will report our recent studies investigating the effect of music training on Chinese word reading and its underlying intervention mechanisms. Lastly, by reviewing the literature, I have identified competing theoretical perspectives of music-to-language transfer. I argue that these perspectives are in fact not mutually exclusive and can be integrated into a comprehensive theoretical model.

About the speaker:
Professor William Choi is the Director of the Speech and Music Perception Laboratory at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. He is a Fellow of the Psychonomic Society and has received two Faculty Early Career Research Output Awards in 2022 and 2025. Moreover, he is a past recipient of the Fulbright-RGC Hong Kong Research Scholar Award and the Croucher Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. The most recent award in 2025 recognizes his article, “Examining the cognitive and perceptual perspectives of music-to-language transfer: A study of Cantonese-English bilingual children,” published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. He also serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Research in Reading, Deafness & Education International, and Frontiers in Psychology.

~ All are welcome ~