A Study On Eye Movement In The Context Of Picture Book Reading For Mandarin-speaking Preschool Children

Eye movement has been a new focus in the research of preschool children's reading ability. This kind of research method is an initiation in preschool education. Numerous findings have been obtained in research on the development of children's reading ability, however, almost no has paid attention to the developmental phases of reading ability for Mandarin-speaking children. Findings will be more objective to reflect preschool children's reading ability if an eye movement recording instrument is applied.By using eye movement research, the study aims at exploring developmental phases of reading ability for Mandarin-speaking preschool children in the context of picture book reading from four aspects, that is, the general picture of eye movement, eye movement characteristics of visual cues, visual reading pattern and key visual information. 162 mandarin-speaking pre-school children from four age groups of three to six are enrolled in the study. Based on their eye movement track during picture book reading, the study indicates the developmental process of children's book reading ability.In the first study of the general picture of eye movement, the results demonstrate that children have great interest in picture book reading and their interest becomes keener as they grow up. Specifically, fixation counts and fixation length increase with children's age in the context of picture booking reading. The fixation length of each fixation averages at 400 milliseconds, with less time for elder children than younger children, which indicates that elder children have a higher level of gaining information than younger children. Moreover, the distribution of fixation is normal while fixation length is positively skew.The second study explores children's characteristics in picture book reading by further examining the distribution of fixations. Findings demonstrate that the eye movement track for children of different age groups is generally focused but with different degrees, which shows that children's ability to information seeking increases with age. Moreover, research on the fixation areas indicates that only those rich in information attract children's attention. In specific, children prefer pictures to characters; new information to previous information; and information in the center of page to that in the margin; in large areas to small areas as well as of bright colors to dark ones.The third study on the visual reading pattern in the process of picture book reading is a further step to investigate visual characteristics in reading. Based on the analysis of children's eye tracking on picture zones and print zones, the study shows that children of all the age groups mainly concentrate on pictures while seldom on print when reading the picture book, but their focus on print increases with age. Meanwhile, the study reveals two patterns of picture book reading, that is, the single visual reading pattern fixing only on pictures and the joint visual reading pattern fixing on both pictures and prints. The former pattern decreases with age while the latter increases with age. In sum, children's visual reading characteristics develop from scattered to fixed.The last study examines the quality of reading for children from the four age groups by attaching attention to their eye movement on key visual information. The results manifest that more key visual information on each page of the book is picked up for elder children and this is the same case with their eye movement on mean fixation length as well as fixation counts toward areas of key visual information. The above findings reveal the improvement of children's understanding while reading. Specially, children of four years old have a significantly better command of key visual information than those of three, indicating that age four is an important period for the development of children's picture-reading ability. In the meanwhile, the study also shows that children with the single visual reading pattern have a more thorough observation and better understanding of pictures than those with the joint pattern.On the basis of the four sub-studies, the study has revealed the developmental phases of reading for Mandarin-speaking preschool children, that is from reading mere pictures to the linking pictures to print. In the linkage reading, the first phase is similar to picture reading. Follows after is emergence of print attention. This phase can be further classified as with or without regressions of print. In the type of eye movement with regressions, linkage or no linkage of prints with corresponding pictures can also be demonstrated. Meanwhile, the eye movement cues develop from scattered to fixed and then to expanding.