Preschool Children's Development Of Reading Comprehension Of Picture Storybook

Reading aims to comprehension, which is also one of the most important competences of reading. Preschool children's comprehension of picture storybooks is an important area to explore for the following three reasons. First, researches related to preschool children's reading comprehension are very scarce. Second, picture storybook reading plays a key role in children's practice and development of early multiliteracy. Third, picture storybooks become much popular in China in recent years. Eye movement researches reveal that preschool children mainly read pictures for understanding during picture storybook reading. However, the procedure of children's visual cognition of pictures seldom has been explored. Based on literature review from a perspective of multimodel meaning making, it is found that quantitative researches need to be implemented focusing on issues such as preschool children's development of reading comprehension, preschool children's development of visual cognition, and the impact of visual cognition and oral language competence on preschool children's reading comprehension. Also, dimensions for assessing preschool children's reading comprehension of storybooks need to be established considering factors related to comprehension of both stories and pictures.In this research, three dimensions for assessing preschool children's reading comprehension of picture storybooks are established, which are comprehension of images, actions and characters'states. Reading comprehension of a picture storybook of 120 preschool children aged 3 to 6 is evaluated through narrative task and structured interview. These children's visual cognition is investigated through eye movement experiment. The impact of visual cognition and oral language competence on reading comprehension is also conducted through correlated and regressional analysis. Based on those findings, characteristics and regular pattern of preschool children's reading comprehension of picture storybooks are concluded, which provide theoretical basis for education and intervention.Findings of research on preschool children's reading comprehension of a picture storybook include:First, the age range from 3 to 6 is a key period for children's development of reading comprehension of picture storybooks. In this period, children's comprehension of images and actions always develop dramatically. Children's comprehension of characters'states develops dramatically from age 3 to 5 but slow down from age 5 to 6. Second, Children understand images at earlier age, understand actions later and understand characters'states at last. What 3-year-old children understand mainly are images. Age 4 is the critical period of children's comprehension of actions and characters'states. Third, It is easier for children to understand images prominent in pictures, actions presented directly by relationship of different images, and characters'states which depicted by visible information such as size and color; however, it is harder for children to understand images not prominent in pictures or representing unfamiliar information, actions which need to be understood with integrative information from pictures before and after, actions and characters'states relative to images children don't understand, and characters'mental states.Findings of research on preschool children's visual cognition of a picture storybook include:First, children focus on picture, especially the area of images during the reading. Compared with children aged 3, children aged 4 to 6 focus on area of images to a larger extent. The extent children fixed on area of images decreases from age 4 to 5, however slightly increases from age 5 to 6. The extent children fixed on pictures and area of images changes at different pages. Second, characteristics of preschool children's visual cognition of images are:Compared with images which are harder to understand, children focus on images which are easier to understand to a larger extent. As children's age increases from 3 to 6, time to first fixation and total fixation duration on an image getting shorter. The first fixation duration on an image getting longer as children's age increases from 3 to 4. However, it is getting shorter as children's age increases from 4 to 6. Third, characteristics of preschool children's visual cognition of actions are:First, compared with children aged 3, there are more children aged 4 to 6 have regressions between the area of caterpillar and sun or apple. Also, children aged 4 to 6 have more regressions between the area of caterpillar and sun or apple than children aged 3. As children's age increases from 3 to 6, the regression counts between the area of caterpillar and apple are getting more. As children's age increases from 4 to 6, the regression counts between the area of caterpillar and sun are getting less. Types of regression of children aged 3 to 6 mainly are CSC (caterpillar-sun-caterpillar) and CAC (caterpillar-apple-caterpillar). Children aged 3 to 5 have more CSC regression, however, the CAC regression children have increases as their age increases and at last becomes more than CSC at age 6. There are more complicated types of regression which include more areas when children aged 4 to 6 identify actions. Fourth, characteristics of preschool children's visual cognition of characters states are:The characteristics of eye movement on every area of protagonist image of children at different age are very similar. The first fixation duration of children on an area of protagonist image is getting longer as children's age increases from 3 to 4, and is getting shorter as children's age increases from 4 to 6.Findings of research on factors influencing preschool children's reading comprehension of a picture storybook include:First, as children's age gets older, their level of visual cognition increases with the following changes on eye movement:As children's age increases from 3 to 4, they focus on the area of images to larger extent, time to the first fixation on an image getting shorter, the total fixation duration on an image getting longer, the total counts of regression between the area of caterpillar and apple and sun and the counts of regression between the area of caterpillar and apple getting more. As children's age increases from 3 to 5, the first fixation duration on a image getting longer. As children's age increases from 5 to 6, they focus on the area of images to less extent, the total fixation duration and first fixation duration getting shorter. Second, as children's level of visual cognition increases, their reading comprehension is getting better. The most important factors influencing preschool children's reading comprehension of a picture storybook are proportion of total fixation duration, proportion of total fixation counts and total fixation counts on area of images, time to first fixation, first fixation duration and total fixation duration on an image, and regression counts between the area of images representing an action. Third, children's oral language competence such as comprehensive words, expressive words and grammar develop fast as their age increases from 3 to 6. Fourth, children's competence of comprehensive words, expressive words and grammar are good for children's reading comprehension. As children's age increases the influence of the oral language competence on achievements of children's reading comprehension of a picture storybook is getting more. And, the factor which predicts the achievements of children's reading comprehension best is competence of expressive words.Based on above findings three conclusions are made:First, reading comprehension of a picture storybook of Chinese children aged 3 to 6 develops through three stages, which are comprehension of images, comprehension of actions and comprehension of characters'states. Second, visual cognition of a picture storybook of Chinese children aged 3 to 6 develops through two stages, which are period of key information catching and period of visual cognition quickening. Third, reading comprehension of a picture storybook of Chinese children aged 3 to 6 is a process of multimodel meaning making.