A Study On The Effects Of Illustration Types On Reading Effect Of Senior High School Students With Different Cognitive Styles

Reading is an important cognitive activity in daily life,study and work.How to read more materials in a short time and quickly understand and extract information from them is an important topic that people have been concerned about and studied.Using illustrations to help people improve their reading comprehension is a common method.In recent decades,there have been more and more researches on illustration.At present,most of the researches on illustration at home and abroad focus on Chinese,mathematics,biology,chemistry and other subjects,and a certain amount of research reports have been published.However,there are few pieces of researches on English illustrations,and few pieces of researches on the illustrations on senior high school students' English reading effect.This study explores the influence of different types of illustrations on the reading effect of senior high school students with two cognitive styles.In fact,a large number of experts and scholars have studied illustrations and their relevance in depth.When we combine the two factors of illustration type and reading effect,we find that reading effect is greatly influenced by individual differences.To solve this problem and avoid the interference of other factors,this paper fully considers and adopts Herman Witkin's theoretical framework,and divides all subjects into two categories: field independence and field dependence.Therefore,the author attempts to analyze the influence of the types of illustrations(decorative,explainable and promotive)on the reading effect of senior high school students with two cognitive styles(field independence and field dependence).This thesis selects 85 students from a senior high school in Hangzhou,Zhejiang Province as the research object,including 38 girls and 47 boys.The first cognitive style test is the Embedded Figures Test,and then the reading effect of students is tested by reading test and self-rating scale.And through interviews with some teachers and students to assist the research results.Specific research questions are:(1)What is the distribution of illustration types and genres of articles in the compulsory series of Textbooks NSEC?(2)What is the correlation between the reading effect of students with different cognitive styles and the types of illustrations?The conclusion of this study is as follows:1.Illustration plays an essential role in the reading part of textbooks NSEC 1-5 with a certain number.From the perspective of article genre,narrative and expository texts account for the majority.And most expository texts are equipped with illustrations,among which the number of explainable illustrations is the most,the number of promotive illustrations is the second,and the number of decorative illustrations is the least.2.For filed-dependent students,the mean score of the reading test with decorative illustrations(8.83)is the lowest and the mean score of explainable illustrations(13.50)is the highest.There is a close relation between decorative,explainable and promotive illustrations and reading effect of senior high school students with field-dependent cognitive style,especially the explainable illustrations.3.According to the average score of reading test of students with field-independent cognitive style,the average score of reading test with explainable illustrations is 13.07,which is the highest,and the lowest average score is decorative illustrations(10.13).On the basis of the Pearson Coefficients,explainable illustration(0.699*)is closely related to the reading test scores.4.Explainable illustrations not only effectively improve the reading effect,but also get the majority of students' preference,followed by promotive illustrations.Therefore,the researcher suggests to the textbook compilers and English teachers that they should attach importance to the role of illustrations,especially explainable illustrations in reading teaching.In the compilation of textbooks and daily teaching,it should be taken into account that students with different cognitive styles have different level of acceptance and comprehending of different types of illustrations.Teachers should maximize the positive role of illustrations in English reading teaching,and promote the improvement of students' reading effect.