Preschool Children with High Reading Ability Show Inversion Sensitivity to Words in Environment: An Eye-Tracking Study

TL;DR

Preschool children with strong reading skills can tell upright from upside-down environmental words, suggesting this ability is linked to early reading development.

Contribution

This study reveals a novel link between inversion sensitivity to environmental print and early reading ability in preschool children.

Findings

High-reading children showed inversion sensitivity to environmental words via fixation duration and count.

Low-reading children showed inversion sensitivity to ordinary words via first fixation latency.

Inversion sensitivity to environmental print correlates with early reading ability.

Abstract

Words in environmental print are exposed to young children before formally learning to read, and attention to these words is linked to their reading ability. Inversion sensitivity, the ability to distinguish between upright and inverted words, is a pivotal milestone in reading development. To further explore the relationship between attention to words in environmental print and early reading development, we examined whether children with varying reading abilities differed in inversion sensitivity to these words. Participants included children with low (18, 8 males, 5.06 years) and high (19, 10 males, 5.00 years) reading levels. Using an eye-tracking technique, we compared children’s attention to upright and inverted words in environmental print and ordinary words during a free-viewing task. In terms of the percentage of fixation duration and fixation count, results showed that children with high reading abilities exhibited inversion sensitivity to words in environmental print, whereas children with low reading abilities did not. Unexpectedly, in terms of first fixation latency, children with low reading abilities showed inversion sensitivity to ordinary words, while children with high reading abilities did not. These findings suggest that inversion sensitivity to words in environmental print is closely linked to early reading ability.

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