An Eye Tracking Study About The Influence Of Reading Speed On 4-6 Years Old Children's Eye Movement Pattern To Picture Book

Young children's print awareness,that is,their perception and understanding of the form and function of the words,is an important foundation of children's early literacy skills.Young children's print awareness gradually formed and developed through their natual contact with the print in the surrounding environment or books.As young children's favorite reading activity,shared picture book reading can increase their exposure to print naturally,which regards to be the ideal way to develop young children's print awareness.Therefore,in order to further discover the strategies that can improve children's attention to print,this study aims to explore whether adult's reading speed can affect young children's eye movement pattern,especially their attention to print in shared picture book reading.24 young children in middle class and 24 in higher class of a kindergarten in Tianjin were chosen as subjects in this study.Tobii T120 was used as a tool to record young children's eye movement pattern during shared reading under fast and slow reading speed by applying the two-factor mixed experimental design.In addition,the reading comprehension test,as a routine test,was used to examined children's story comprehension after reading under these two different reading speed.Therefore,this study will mainly discuss the following two aspects:First,in shared picture book reading,whether adult's reading speed will affect the eye movement pattern of 4-6-year-old children,especially the attention to print,and whether this effect is different for young children in different age groups.Second,in shared picture book reading,whether adult's reading speed will affect young children's understanding of the story.The findings are as followings:(1)In shared picture book reading,reading speed is an important factor to affect young children's eye movement pattern.When reading stories with slow speed,children 's attention to print can be significantly improved by increasing fixation time,fixation count,proportion of fixation time and proportion of fixation count to print,although they still pay more attention to pictures;the effect of reading speed on children's attention to print is consistent in the index of proportion of fixation time,while exists differences in the index of proportion of fixation count,which has more obvious effects on older children.(2)In shared picture book reading,young children can get a basic understanding of the story no matter whether they are reading the story under the fast or slow adult's reading speed.However,when reading the story in slow speed,children can get a better understanding of the story.The effect of reading speed to young children's story comprehension from different age groups is consistent.Therefore,based on the conclusions of this study,we make the following suggestions.In shared picture book reading,adults should:(1)slow down reading speed appropriately to give children more opportunity to pay attention to print and understand the story better.(2)combine other strategies that can lead children's attenttion to print to promote children's print awareness more effectively.