Purpose: Inference-making skills are necessary for reading
comprehension. Training in riddle appreciation is an effective
way to improve reading comprehension among Englishspeaking
children. However, it is not clear whether these
methods generalize to other writing systems. The goal of the
present study was to investigate the relationship between
inference-making skills, as measured by riddle appreciation
ability, and reading comprehension performance in typically
developing Cantonese-speaking children in the 4th grade.
Method: Forty Cantonese-speaking children between the
ages of 9;1 (years;months) and 11;0 were given tests of riddle
appreciation ability and reading comprehension. Chinese
character reading and auditory comprehension abilities were also
assessed using tests that had been standardized in Hong Kong.
Results: Regression analyses revealed that riddle appreciation
ability explained a significant amount of variance in reading
comprehension after variance due to character reading skills
and auditory comprehension skills were first considered.
Orthographic, lexical, morphological, and syntactic riddles
were also significantly correlated with reading comprehension.
Conclusion: Riddle appreciation ability predicts reading
comprehension in Cantonese-speaking 4th-grade children.
Therefore, training Cantonese speakers in riddle appreciation
should improve their reading comprehension.