An Eye Movement Study On The Relationship Between Quick Name And Early Childhood Reading Based On Eye-voice Span

Early childhood reading is an important way to get access to the information and develop their abilities. It has strong and consistent influence on children’s study and later life. However, lacking of formal literacy learning assignment and standard academic achievement evaluation, the screen of at-risk reading learning disability has been ignored. Rapid automatized naming(RAN) relate to Chinese reading ability significantly, the children with reading disability has RAN deficit (Ho.,Lai.,2009; Liao,2008).We often measure RAN with a stopwatch, in which way ignored the dynamic characteristics between visual perception and the phonological output in the process of RAN. Eye-voice span(EVS) was defined as the number of items ahead of eyes when articulation of a target item name began, it reflects the temporal and spatial characteristics between visual perception and simultaneous phonological processing. The early study of Buswell(1920) and Fairbanks (1937) proved that EVS is a good predictor to reading ability. The paper studied the RAN characteristics with eye-tracking among 5-6 years old children and the EVS in rapid naming and its relation to early reading disability among the high level and low ability children. Moreover, the paper analysed the EVS in sentence reading and its relation to early reading ability.Study 1 showed the eye-movement characteristics and the difference among the four tasks in RAN with 5-6 years old children. The results displayed that the ability of rapid naming developed with age.6 years old children performed better in the process of shifting the visual stimulus into phonological output. It showed different characteristics among the 4 tests in rapid naming within the same age children. It took shorter naming time and fixation length, fewer fixation count, shorter the time to first fixation and first fixation duration in digits and character rapid naming. The processing of digits and characters rapid naming is much more automatic and the colors and objects naming takes more psychological resources.Study 2 shows the EVS in rapid naming and its relation to early reading ability by investigating the rapid naming of the high ability group and low ability group. The results displayed that the EVS of high ability group differed significantly from low ability group, to some extent, the EVS in rapid naming predict reading ability. Rapid naming showed different inner characteristics between the high reading ability and low reading ability children. The EVS of digits and characters rapid naming is more wider than colors and objects rapid naming. The correlation analysis showed that the four rapid naming tests relate significantly with early reading ability. Colors and objects EVS in rapid naming showed stronger relation with early reading ability than digits and characters naming, which showed some support for the screen of at-risk reading children.Study 3 discussed the EVS in oral sentence reading and its relationship to early reading ability. The results showed that the EVS in sentences reading is a good predictor to reading level. The EVS of sentences reading differed significantly between high reading ability group and low reading ability group in grade 1. The sentences reading EVS of high ability group is much stronger than the low reading ability group. The analysis of different positions in sentences reading EVS between high reading ability group and low reading ability group showed that the average EVS in the beginning of a sentence is the widest, however, the average EVS in the end of a sentence is the narrowest. Moreover, the sentences reading EVS of high reading ability group differed significantly from the low level ability group. The wider EVS of high reading ability means the children with high reading ability has a better perception and grasp of the subsequent information and adjust the EVS according to the different positions in a sentence. The sentences reading EVS in the beginning and end of a sentence correlate with early reading ability significantly, to some extent, it predicted early reading ability.