Impact of wordless picture book reading on narrative competence of senior kindergarten class in chengde, China /
Wu Bo
- xvi, 308 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 30 cm. + 1 CD-ROM
Centre for Human Sciences
Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy) -- Universiti Malaysia Pahang - 2025
Center for Modern Language
Early childhood is a critical period for language and cognitive development, and reading activities play a crucial role in fostering these skills. Among various reading materials, wordless picture books have been shown in international studies to support children’s language acquisition, narrative competence, and cognitive growth. However, despite these benefits, such books are rarely incorporated into Chinese kindergartens. In addition, rigorous experimental studies that examine their effectiveness, or explore how different reading approaches influence their impact, are still limited.The study aims to examine the effect of wordless picture books on the narrative abilities of preschool children covering macrostructure (e.g., story organization) and microstructure (e.g., linguistic details). A pre–post–test design with three experimental groups was employed. A total of 102 senior kindergarten children from a public kindergarten in Chengde, Hebei Province, were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: independent reading of conventional picture books (control group, CG), independent reading of wordless picture books (experimental group 2, EG2), or shared reading of wordless picture books (experimental group 1, EG1). The intervention lasted for 6 weeks. The Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI) was used to prompt children’s narratives and evaluate their macrostructure, while the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) was utilized to analyze microstructure language indicators. The results showed that, under the same independent reading condition, the wordless picture book group performed significantly better than the regular picture book group in terms of macro-structural dimensions such as event initiation, attempt processes, and character identification (p < .05, Benjamini–Hochberg corrected, BH). However no significant differences were found in the microstructure. Furthermore, within the same wordless picture book context, shared reading led to significant improvements in children’s narrative macrostructure, including internal reactions of characters (IR), story background (SET), and overall story structure. However, although medium effect sizes were observed for microstructural indicators such as oral output and vocabulary diversity (total number of words, TNW; total number of utterances, TNU; number of different words, NDW), these changes did not reach statistical significance (pBH = .056). This study confirms that wordless picture books, especially when combined with shared reading can effectively improve children’s narrative completeness and language production. These findings provide empirical support and practical recommendations for kindergartens in selecting reading materials and designing reading activities, including enriching wordless picture book collections and balancing shared and independent reading sessions. Given the relatively short duration of this study, it is recommended that future research include long-term, multi-site follow-up studies to further validate the external validity of the findings. Key words: Wordless picture books, Narrative Competence, Independent Reading, Shared Reading, Schema Theory, Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
THE0010522 (Local)
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