Reading Pictures for Story Comprehension Requires Mental Imagery Skills

Abstract

We examined the role of mental imagery skills on story comprehension in 150 fifth graders (10- to 12-year-olds), when reading a narrative book chapter with alternating words and pictures (i.e., text blocks were alternated by one- or two-page picture spreads). A parallel group design was used, in which we compared our experimental book version, in which pictures were used to replace parts of the corresponding text, to two control versions, i.e., a text-only version and a version with the full story text and all pictures. Analyses showed an interaction between mental imagery and book version: children with higher mental imagery skills outperformed children with lower mental imagery skills on story comprehension after reading the experimental narrative. This was not the case for both control conditions. This suggests that children’s mental imagery skills significantly contributed to the mental representation of the story that they created, by successfully integrating information from both words and pictures. The results emphasize the importance of mental imagery skills for explaining individual variability in reading development. Implications for educational practice are that we should find effective ways to instruct children how to “read” pictures and how to develop and use their mental imagery skills. This will probably contribute to their mental models and therefore their story comprehension.

Zihinsel İmaj Oluşturmaya Dayalı Öğretimin Okuduğunu Anlama Becerisine Etkisi

“…In this study, it was concluded that there was no significant difference between post-test scores of the students that took the course and did not take the course in terms of mental image reading comprehension skills in the context of both narrative text and informative text. In many studies (Boerma, Mol and Jolles, 2016;Kocaarslan, 2015;Elliott, 2007;Oakhill and Patel, 1991 ) in the literature, it is noteworthy that there is no statistically significant contribution to this study while emphasizing the positive contribution to comprehension of mental image.…”

Pictures over words: a cross-sectional study reporting short term memory abilities in children

“…It is claimed that presenting multimedia information, i.e. presentations of material using words and pictures ( Mayer, 2002 ) results in deeper comprehension ( Boerma et al , 2016 ), subsequently improving recall. This can be considered as a contributing factor for better recall of auditory-visual words.…”

Intertextuality or Story Resistance? A Deconstruction of Stories with Preschoolers: An Example of "The Little Red Riding Hood"

“…The children were selected using a purposeful sampling method regarding gender and age. Previous studies provide evidence that children's story comprehension and production can be differentiated according to their gender and age groups [38,39]. Older age groups in addition to girls in general tended to exhibit more favorable performances.…”