The Characteristics Of Children Aged 4～6 On Reading Environmental Print

Environment prints refer to the written words that exist in the natural living environment and can be directly contacted by children(e.g.,the name ‘Mcdonald’s’ on advertising boards).Through the interaction with environmental prints,children begin to contact words and understand their meanings and functions,thus improving their early reading ability.Although a large number of studies have proved that environmental prints can promote the development of children’s reading ability,there is still no direct evidence to show whether children have a preference for the words in environmental prints and the relationship between this preference and reading ability.Thus,this study selected 107 children aged 4～6 from a kindergarten in Hangzhou as subjects.Firstly,eye tracking technology was used to investigate the eye movement characteristics of children aged 4～6 in reading environmental prints and the influence of contextual cues(i.e.,color,logo and font type)in environmental prints on reading environmental prints and how.Secondly,the naming task is used to investigate the characteristics of environmental prints reading of children aged 4～6.Finally,the Chinese character recognition test is used to measure children’s reading ability,so as to explore the relationship between the characteristics of children’s environmental prints reading and their reading ability,and to provide theoretical evidence for parents and teachers to promote the development of children’s early reading ability.The findings are:1.There are age differences in children’s reading environment words.With the increase of age,children’s attention level to the word areas of environmental prints is higher.Compared with 4-year-old and 5-year old children,6-year-old children pay more attention to the word areas when reading environmental prints,and there is a rapid development stage of children’s attention preference for words in environmental prints between the ages of 4 and 5.2.Children aged 4～6 are easily influenced by contextual cues when reading environmental prints,and logo cues have the greatest influence;The influence of contextual cues changes with age.Four-year-old children are more susceptible to logo,while six-year-old children are most affected by font type.3.4-6-year-old children’s reading characteristics of environmental prints are related to their reading ability.The stronger children’s reading ability,the faster and longer they pay attention to the word areas in the environmental prints,and the less they are affected by the logo and font type.Based on these,this study puts forward the following suggestions: 1.Making full use of environmental prints to provide children with rich writing experience;2.Paying more attention to 4～5 years old,and grasp the rapid development stage of children’s attention preference for words in environmental prints;3.Choosing appropriate reading materials for young children.