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.
Highlights
Understanding a story text requires the reader to form a mental representation, or situation model, of that story (e.g., Kintsch, 1988; Zwaan and Radvansky, 1998)
Narrative texts form an important genre though, as they act as a model of the human social world and allow readers to experience thoughts and emotions that are evoked by the story events (Mar and Oatley, 2008)
Children with lower imagery skills had problems understanding our experimental book version, whereas this was not the case for our control conditions. This implies that children who are more experienced in using mental imagery during reading were able to build a mental model that helped them connect pictures and words in such a way that this enhanced their understanding of this experimental narrative
Summary
Understanding a story text requires the reader to form a mental representation, or situation model, of that story (e.g., Kintsch, 1988; Zwaan and Radvansky, 1998). Narrative texts form an important genre though, as they act as a model of the human social world and allow readers to experience thoughts and emotions that are evoked by the story events (Mar and Oatley, 2008). In this quasiexperimental study, we examined the role of elementary school children’s mental imagery skills in their ability to understand a story that required an integration of words and pictures. We expected that understanding this experimental narrative would put high demands on both children’s mental imagery skills, and their ability to “read” pictures
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