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Chinese Characters Help Improve IQ
Chinese characters may be the reason why local children aged between six and 12 display a higher IQ1 than their peers2 in Britain, Germany and Australia.
The pictographic nature of the Chinese writing system helps to stimulate the thinking faculty of children. Their intelligence develops better while they learn the characters.
This was disclosed by Dr Zeng Zeng, assistant professor3 of psychology at NUS, in an interview with Lianhe Zaobao as was reported.
I am a retired Chinese-language teacher from Malaysia. From my experiences, I have long noticed that Chinese-medium-educated students always excel in mathematics as compared with those taught in other languages. The secret lies in the Chinese characters. The words for numerals are all monosyllabic4 in Chinese. In contrast, their equivalents in Malay have two or three syllables, like sa -tu, du-a, ti-ga, em-pat, li-ma, e-nam, tu-juh, lapan, sem-bi-lan, se -pu-luh. It takes a longer time to pronounce these words. Their English equivalents — one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, hundred, thousand, million — include multi-syllabic words, too.
The difference between them is most striking when it comes to memorising the multiplication table . Children easily find that it is in the Chinese language that they can do the job fastest.
Children taught in Chinese find it easier to learn numerals and can do their calculations much faster.
This has been repeatedly borne out by reports on Chinese-medium-educated students winning prizes in International Mathematics Olympiads.
Mathematics has a lot to do with IQ tests, as it is well proven that children good at numbers tend to have a stronger reasoning faculty. So, I would like to call on Chinese parents to treasure the language of our ancestors. Teach the children Chinese so that they can think in the language. Keep their cutting edge in mathematics with the aid of Chinese characters, and this will improve their IQ.
練習題：
Ⅰ. Select one which bears the same meaning with underlined words:
1. Why local children aged between 6 and 12 display a higher IQ?
A. native; show B. naive; demonstrate
2. Chinese writing system helps to stimulate the thinking faculty of children.
A. encourage; power B. discourage; face
3. I would like to call on Chinese parents to treasure the language of our ancestors.
A. cherish; forefathers B. treat; antiquities
Ⅱ. Question:
Which fact can prove that students taught in Chinese having high IQ?
