Study On The Influence Of Executive Function,theory Of Mind And Reasoning Ability On Preschool Children’s Reading Comprehension

Early reading is crucial to preschool children’s development.The three components of executive function are working memory,inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility.Studies have shown that working memory,inhibitory control,cognitive flexibility,theory of mind and reasoning ability are closely related to children’s reading comprehension.Moreover,some studies have shown that cognitive flexibility,inhibitory control,working memory is closely related to children’s theory of mind and reasoning ability.Theory of mind and reasoning ability are advanced cognitive skills.Therefore,the study hypothesized that working memory,cognitive flexibility,inhibitory control can indirectly affect children’s reading comprehension by theory of mind and reasoning ability.Most of the existing studies on the relationship between working memory,inhibitory control,cognitive flexibility,theory of mind,reasoning ability and children’s reading comprehension focus on school-age children.The age of 3-6 is a critical period for children’s development of theory of mind and executive function.The study on the influence mechanism of theory of mind,working memory,inhibitory control,cognitive flexibility and reasoning ability on preschool children’ reading comprehension can provide intervention support for preschool children with lagging development of reading comprehension.In this study,202 4~5-year-old preschool children were selected as research sample.The relationship between working memory,inhibitory control,cognitive flexibility,theory of mind and reasoning ability and preschool children’s reading comprehension was investigated by means of tests.The study found that:(1)Age,theory of mind and reasoning ability can directly affect preschool children’s reading comprehension.(2)Cognitive flexibility,working memory can account for 15 percent of the variation in preschool children’ reasoning ability;age,cognitive flexibility,working memory can account for 17 percent of the variation in preschool children’ theory of mind;cognitive flexibility,theory of mind,age,reasoning ability can account for 19 percent of the variation in preschool children’ reading comprehension.(3)The total effect of age on preschool children’s reading comprehension is 0.282,theory of mind is 0.218,cognitive flexibility is 0.167,working memory is 0.080 and reasoning ability is 0.144.This indicates that at the age of 4-5 years,preschool children’s reading comprehension develops rapidly and theory of mind has a greater influence on preschool children’s reading comprehension compared with reasoning ability.(4)Cognitive flexibility,working memory can indirectly affect preschool children’s reading comprehension by theory of mind and reasoning ability.Moreover,the influence of theory of mind and reasoning ability on reading comprehension is completely mediated.(5)Preschool children’s reasoning ability,theory of mind and reading comprehension is not related to their inhibitory control.(6)In the understanding of the elements of the story,at the age of 4-5 years,preschool children’s understanding of story occurrence,story process and the story ending develops rapidly.Theory of mind and reasoning ability play an important role in children’s understanding of the protagonist’s motivation.Theory of mind plays an important role in children’s understanding of story process and cognitive flexibility,reasoning ability and theory of mind play an important role in children’s understanding and prediction of the story ending.