4—6岁幼儿图画书自主阅读过程中文字注视的眼动研究

4—6 Year-old Children's Visual Attention to Print During Storybook Independent Reading:Evidences from Eyemovements

儿童早期的文字意识是儿童阅读能力发展最重要的两个预测变量之一,在幼儿时期表现为对文字的关注。研究以121名4-6岁幼儿为被试,采用TobiiT60眼动仪记录幼儿在图画书阅读过程中对文字注视的眼动。结果发现:1.幼儿在自主阅读情境下仍然首先关注图画、在阅读过程中主要关注图画,自主阅读情境中幼儿对文字的注视时间比例和注视次数比例远高于亲子阅读情境中的比例。2.年龄和文字面积是幼儿图画书自主阅读中文字注视的核心影响因素,幼儿对文字的注视比例随着年龄的增长而不断提高,文字面积通过年龄对幼儿的文字注视起作用。3.幼儿早期阅读能力经历了"从图画到文字"的发展过程,学前末期,幼儿逐渐成为一个初步的文字阅读者。

Print awareness is one of key building blocks for children＇s literacy development.One behavior of young children＇s print awareness in picture-book reading is fixating on the print.A body of research on preschool children＇s eye-fixation during parent-child story reading found that children rarely look at the print when they are being read to. The study used eye-gaze analysis to determine the extent to which young children fixate on the print of picture-books increased from 4 to 6 years of age during independent reading.A total of 121 children ranging in age from 4 to 6 years recruited from five kindergartens in Shanghai particated in this study.The reading materials were‘the Very Hungry Caterpillar＇,‘The Three Robbers＇ and ＇The Napping house which are populan with children worldwide,and have been translated into Chinese.The children＇s eye monvements while reading individually were monitored by Tobii T60 from Tobii Technology AB.The three indexes used for analysis were First fixation time,Proportion of fixation length and Proportion of fixation counts. The results found that children paid attention to the print at 3.42 second,spent 23.97%fixation time on the print and 16.83% fixation counts on the print during picture-book reading independently.Age（4-,5-,and 6-year-olds）×gender（boy and girl） factorial analyses of variance（ANOVAs） were conducted of the time on first fixation,proportion of fixation length and proportion of fixation counts.The ANOVAs confirmed that there was a significant main effect of an age group on the three dependent variables,but no effect of the gender group.The interaction was also significant for the age group.Scheffe test showed that there were significant differences in three dependent variables.With stepwise regression,the results found that both age and zone of the print had a significant effect on the fixation on the print during independent picture-book reading. Similar to previous studies,the results also revealed that children in all age groups attended to the illustrution earlier than the print,spent a greater percentage of time looking at the illustrution in the books than the print,and a higher proportion of fixation length,too.But this study found that the indexes from independent reading were higher than those from shared picture-book reading. Independent reading could stimulate child＇s attention to the print.Increasing with age,young chilren paid attention to the print more quickly,and put more fixation time and counts on the print.Age and the zone of print were the predicting variables for young children s fixation on the print during independent reading.Age was more important to the visual attention,and the zone of print affected visual attention during reading with age increasing.With the eye movements analysis of data from young children＇ independent reading,this study confirmed the developmental stage of yound children＇s emerging literacy found from previous studies, and their development from‘fixating on picture＇ to‘fixating on the print＇ with the increase of age during picture books reading. They gradually became beginniay print readers at the end of preschool years.