TY - JOUR
T1 - Influences of text difficulty and reading ability on learning illustrated science texts for children
T2 - An eye movement study
AU - Jian, Yu Cin
AU - Ko, Hwa Wei
N1 - Funding Information:
The data of this study were collected in 2014 by the first author, Assistant Professor Yu-Cin Jian, when she was a postdoctoral fellow in the National Central University, Taiwan. This research was supported by the grant NSC102-2511-S-008-018-MY4 and MOST103-2511-S-003-065-MY3 from the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan. We also thank Dr. Su, Jia-han for his eye-movement data analysis tool.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2017/10
Y1 - 2017/10
N2 - In this study, eye movement recordings and comprehension tests were used to investigate children's cognitive processes and comprehension when reading illustrated science texts. Ten-year-old children (N = 42) who were beginning to read to learn, with high and low reading ability read two illustrated science texts in Chinese (one medium-difficult article, one difficult article), and then answered questions that measured comprehension of textual and pictorial information as well as text-and-picture integration. The high-ability group outperformed the low-ability group on all questions. Eye movement analyses showed that both group of students spent roughly the same amount of time reading both articles, but had different methods of reading them. The low-ability group was inclined to read what seemed easier to them and read the text more. The high-ability group attended more to the difficult article and made an effort to integrate the textual and pictorial information. During a first-pass reading of the difficult article, high- but not low-ability readers returned to the previous paragraph. The low-ability readers spent more time reading the less difficult article and not the difficult one that required teachers' attention. Suggestions for classroom instruction are proposed accordingly.
AB - In this study, eye movement recordings and comprehension tests were used to investigate children's cognitive processes and comprehension when reading illustrated science texts. Ten-year-old children (N = 42) who were beginning to read to learn, with high and low reading ability read two illustrated science texts in Chinese (one medium-difficult article, one difficult article), and then answered questions that measured comprehension of textual and pictorial information as well as text-and-picture integration. The high-ability group outperformed the low-ability group on all questions. Eye movement analyses showed that both group of students spent roughly the same amount of time reading both articles, but had different methods of reading them. The low-ability group was inclined to read what seemed easier to them and read the text more. The high-ability group attended more to the difficult article and made an effort to integrate the textual and pictorial information. During a first-pass reading of the difficult article, high- but not low-ability readers returned to the previous paragraph. The low-ability readers spent more time reading the less difficult article and not the difficult one that required teachers' attention. Suggestions for classroom instruction are proposed accordingly.
KW - Applications in subject areas
KW - Elementary education
KW - Evaluation methodologies
KW - Pedagogical issues
KW - Teaching/learning strategies
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U2 - 10.1016/j.compedu.2017.06.002
DO - 10.1016/j.compedu.2017.06.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85020449308
SN - 0360-1315
VL - 113
SP - 263
EP - 279
JO - Computers and Education
JF - Computers and Education
ER -