Psychological Development and Education ›› 2025, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (3): 305-312.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.03.01

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The Developmental Trajectory of Perceptual Span from Second Graders to Fifth Graders

LI Sainan1,2, WANG Yali3, YUAN Xiaoyuan1, LIU Nina1,4,5, ZHAO Shuping6, YAN Guoli1,4,5   

  1. 1. Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387;
    2. Tianjin Academy of Educational Science, Tianjin 300191;
    3. Tianjin No. 1 High School, Tianjin 300054;
    4. Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387;
    5. Tianjin Social Science Laboratory of Students' Mental Development and Learning, Tianjin 300387;
    6. Primary School Affiliated to Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin 300380
  • Published:2025-05-20

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Abstract: The area from which readers extract useful information during a single fixation is termed as perceptual span. There have been no studies so for to systematically investigate the developmental perceptual span during Chinese reading. Using moving-window paradigm, the present study mainly investigated the developmental trajectory of perceptual span from second graders to fifth graders. All the participants were asked to read age-appropriate materials, students from third to fifth graders were also required to read common reading materials, that’s Grade 2 materials. The results found that when all the graders read common reading materials, the perceptual span for second graders is 2 characters to the right of fixation, while 3 characters to the right of fixation for third and higher graders. However, when reading age-appropriate materials, the perceptual span is 2 characters to the right of fixation for all the grades, suggesting that the difficulty of reading material modulates perceptual span. The results not only provide data supporting for the construction of eye movement models for Chinese children’s reading, but also have some pedagogical value for guiding Chinese reading teaching.

Key words: primary students, reading development, perceptual span, moving-window paradigm

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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