The Influence Of Verbal And Nonverbal Visual Attention Span On Reading Comprehension: The Mediating Role Of Reading Fluency

In order to build a bookish China and let citizens establish a sense of reading,the country began to advocate nationwide reading.However,in the process of reading,the overall reading level of some children is still significantly lower than that of their peers when other organic problems are excluded,showing developmental dyslexia.The cause of developmental dyslexia has been debated since reading is partly a visual perceptual activity that involves processing many strings of characters or letters.Therefore,in recent years,more and more scholars have begun to shift from the linguistic level to the basic visual level.The most famous one is the theory of visual attention span deficit proposed by Bosse.He believes that children with developmental dyslexia have difficulties in processing multi-element strings,namely,visual attention span deficit,which is independent from phonetic deficit.Therefore,in this study,children with dyslexia were selected from grade 2,4 and 6 of a primary school in Xingtai City,Hebei Province according to the standards,and normal children of the same age were matched as the control group,and the differences in verbal and nonverbal visual attention span between the two groups and the development trend of verbal and nonverbal visual attention span in different grades were compared.At the same time,the differences in reading fluency and reading comprehension between the two groups were measured,and the effects of visual attention span and reading fluency on reading comprehension were further discussed.SPSS22.0 and Process were used to conduct difference test,correlation analysis,regression analysis and mediation analysis between dyslexic children and normal children.The results showed that:(1)The score of verbal visual attention span,reading fluency at word and sentence level and reading comprehension of dyslexic children was lower than that of normal children,while the score of non-verbal visual attention span was basically the same.(2)The score of language visual attention span of the control group and the dyslexic children at the same age showed an increasing trend with the increase of grade.(3)Verbal visual attention span was correlated with word-word and sentence-level reading fluency and reading comprehension,while non-verbal visual attention span was not correlated with word-word and sentence-level reading fluency and reading comprehension.(4)Language visual attention span predicted reading fluency and reading comprehension at word and sentence levels.(5)With the help of word and sentence reading fluency,language visual attention span had an impact on reading comprehension.Conclusions:(1)The children with dyslexia had defects in verbal visual attention span,reading fluency at word and sentence levels and reading comprehension,but there was no difference in the performance of non-verbal visual attention span between the two groups.(2)The visual attention span deficit of language gradually increases with the increase of grade,and the higher the grade,the more obvious the deficit is.(3)The predictive effect of verbal visual attention span on word-reading fluency,sentence-reading fluency and reading comprehension lasted from grade two to grade six,and the predictive effect of verbal visual attention span on word-word-sentence reading fluency and reading comprehension in grade four and grade six was significantly higher than that in grade two.(4)Visual attention span can indirectly explain reading comprehension through word-reading fluency or sentence-reading fluency.