Children’s visual attention characteristics reveal the level of information picture book reading comprehension

Abstract

The information picture book, as a very significant type among picture books, has made early childhood educators and parents always feel difficult for the children to understand due to its language expression, content presentation and the connection with children’s life experience. This study has focused on the eye movement level of Chinese children’s reading comprehension of information picture books through an eye-tracking study, exploring the visual attention characteristics of Chinese children’s reading comprehension, understanding the modes and characteristics of children’s endogenous comprehension through their eye movement characteristics. The research mainly answers the following three questions:

What do we know about the visual perception of key images in information picture books among children aged 3–5 years?

Do children with different levels of reading comprehension have different levels of visual attention characteristics?

Is there a correlation between the results of eye movement analysis and the characteristics of children’s cognitive science and understanding?

Based on a randomized sample of 90 children aged 3–5 years from Xi’an, Shaanxi Province of China, we used an eye movement instrument to record children’s eye movement routes when they were reading a selected typical information picture book, and then analyzed the visual attention characteristics of them. Results have shown that there is a high correlation between children’s level of cognitive characteristics of scientific phenomena and understanding phenomena, and children’s visual cognitive level of key images.