An Eye Movement Study On 3-6-Year-Old Children's Vocabulary Acquisition During Picture Book Repeated Reading

The mastery of vocabulary is the basis of individual language development.Many studies have proved that picture book reading is beneficial to the vocabulary acquisition of preschool children,but there are few studies on the specific performance of preschool children's vocabulary acquisition.Researchers used eye-tracking techniques to record the fixation of preschool children on print or pictures,explored their visual preferences,and found that they mainly read pictures when reading picture books.However,there is little research on the characteristics of eye movement changes in vocabulary corresponding images of preschool children,and the relationship between “looking at pictures” and “learning words” in the picture book reading of preschool children is not clear.In addition,previous studies on picture book reading mostly adopt single reading,which makes it difficult to discuss the stable relationship between vocabulary acquisition and picture book reading.Moreover,they are mostly carried out in the independent reading context,and seldom involve the associated reading(sharing)situations common in daily activities of preschool children.In this study,108 young,middle and large classes of children in Hangzhou were used as the research object.Tobii X3-120 eye tracker was used to record their eye movement fixation when they repeatedly read “Good Night,Owl” five times in the context of accompanying reading.PPVT(Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test)and EVT(Expressive Vocabulary Test)were used to test the general receptive language ability and expressive language ability of preschool children before the trial.And their target vocabulary naming and understanding ability were evaluated before and afterthe experiment,focusing on the following problem:1.How is the vocabulary acquisition of preschool 3-6-year-old children in repeated picture book reading?2.What are the changes of eye movement characteristics of 3-6-year-old children during repeated reading of picture books?3.Will the 3-6-year-old children's vocabulary knowledge be mediated by eye movement fixation?The study found that: 1.The target vocabulary score of preschool children after repeated reading is significantly higher than that of the pretest,especially in the vocabulary comprehension task,but the proportion of vocabulary acquisition is small;the target vocabulary test score increased with the preschool children's grades,large classes Infants learn the most target words;the higher the word frequency,the higher the vocabulary scores of preschool children,and the most vocabulary learned on the middle frequency words.2.Children who can recognize the target vocabulary in the pretest have a higher level of fixation on the target word image;preschool children see the latest on the medium frequency words,the least fixation,the fastest on the high frequency words,the most fixation,the low frequency words Second,the children who have learned the mid-frequency words have a higher level of attention to the target word image than the children who have not learned.3.The higher the pretest scores for PPVT,EVT,vocabulary naming and vocabulary understanding of preschool children,the higher the vocabulary naming and vocabulary understanding scores in the post-test;vocabulary acquisition is directly affected by the vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary image of preschool children Part of the mediating effect of the first fixation duration.The study draws the following conclusions: 1.Preschool children can acquire vocabulary through repeated reading,with the best effect on the acquisition of intermediate frequency words and vocabulary understanding,but less vocabulary is acquired.The vocabulary acquisition level of the preschool children in large classes is the highest.2.During the repeated reading of picture books,there is a significant difference between the preschool children's fixation on the acquired and unacquiredvocabulary,which means that the preschool children learn the vocabulary by fixating images.3.Existing vocabulary level is an important predictor of vocabulary acquisition of preschool children;the fixation of preschool children on vocabulary image mediates their vocabulary acquisition effect.In view of the research conclusions,the following Suggestions are proposed: 1.Encourage young children to read the same book four to five times.2.Help young children to be exposed to more intermediate frequency words.3.Increase interaction with young children in sharing reading.