Young Children's Visual Attention to Environmental Print as Measured by Eye Tracker Analysis

Abstract

Environmental print, such as signs and product labels, consist of both print and contextual cues designed to attract the visual attention of the reader. However, contextual cues may draw young children's attention away from the print, thus questioning the value of environmental print in early reading development. Eye tracker technology was used to measure the extent that children attend to words in environmental print. The relationships between print fixations and letter and word knowledge, as well as differences in fixations across types of environmental print, were also examined. Preschool children (N = 39) ages 3–5 years viewed photographs of nine environmental print items and their standard print equivalents while visual fixations were recorded. Children were found to attend to words in environmental print, although they showed more and longer fixations for standard print words without contextual cues. Children's fixations were not associated with print knowledge. However, fixations on words in environmental print varied by item type to suggest that print learning may be facilitated by using environmental print with larger and more centralized fonts.

Visual attention to print-salient and picture-salient environmental print in young children

“…Extending this research on story books, a recent eye tracker study examined children's visual attention to words in environmental print (Neumann, Acosta, & Neumann, 2014). Pre-reading children (N = 39) aged 3 to 5 years were presented with photographs of nine different environmental print items (e.g., BUS STOP sign; HUNGRY JACK'S).…”

Characteristics of print in books for preschool children

“…It has been suggested that books that contain a good deal of such print are an important vehicle for early literacy learning because they support the development of print awareness (Cetin & Bay, 2015; Zucker, Justice, & Piasta, 2009). This idea is based on the finding that preschool children pay more attention to writing that is large or bold or embedded in pictures than writing that does not have these characteristics (Neumann, Acosta, & Neumann, 2014; Neumann, Summerfield, & Neumann, 2015; Smolkin, Conlon, & Yaden, 1988; Smolkin, Yaden, Brown, & Hofius, 1992). When reading to children, moreover, teachers of preschool children appear to talk more often about the printed letters and words if books are high in print salience than if they are low (Dynia, Justice, Pentimonti, & Piasta, 2013; Zucker et al, 2009).…”

“…The latter styles have been described as visually salient (Cetin & Bay, 2015), and studies suggest that they draw preschoolers’ attention (Neumann et al, 2014). We also coded whether the letters of the randomly chosen word were in a serif font (e.g., ‹k›) or a font without serifs (e.g., ‹›).…”

“…Studies suggest that children look more at print when it is embedded in illustrations or speech bubbles and that, when being read to, they make more comments on such print (Cetin & Bay, 2015; Neumann et al, 2014; Smolkin et al, 1988; Zucker et al, 2009). We coded the books in our study for this feature.…”

“…Studies suggest that prereaders are more likely to look at print that is larger than print that is smaller (Neumann et al, 2014). We analyzed print size by measuring the height of the letters.…”