The Effect Of Story Comprehension On 4-5 Years Old Children’s Attention To Picture Books By Repeated Reading

Repeated reading is a normal and typical phenomenon in children’s behaviors. Story comprehension is a usual strategy for teachers and parents.The present two studies used eye tracker to investigate the influence of repeated reading on children’s attention of picture and print, and children’s attention to picture and print with the influence of story comprehension. Experiment 1 recorded the eye movements of first and fifth time (last time) for 40 young children between 4 and 5 years old when reading the same picture book. Experiment 2 recorded the eye movements of the first and fifth time (last time) for 40 young children between 4 and 5 years old,20 with story comprehension questions,20 without story comprehension questions. The results were as followings:1. There was a significant increasing on total reading time, fixation counts and visit counts, but less on time to first fixation from the first reading to the fifth reading.2. There was less total reading time, fixation counts on the areas of leading character and details from the first reading to the fifth reading. There was no significant difference in total reading time, fixation counts between first reading and fifth reading for the background of the picture book.3. Weather there are story comprehension questions or not, there was a significant increasing for concern of print and decreasing for attention of picture.4. Story comprehension influences the attention to the print. The young children will pay more attention to print if they are asked to answer story comprehension questions.5. Story comprehension influences the attention of picture. The decreasing of the attention to picture details for the young children who are asked to answer story comprehension questions will be less than the children who are not asked to answer story comprehension questions. There was no significant difference for leading character and background.Based on the findings of this study, we propose some recommendations to parents of young children, kindergarten teachers how to guide young children to read picture books.