Asian Journal of Management Sciences & Education Vol. 11(2) July- October 2022__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________THE EFFECTS OF GAMIFIED READING OF PICTURE BOOKS ON
YOUNG CHILDREN’S READING ABILITY IN KINDERGARTEN
Guohui Zhang1， Anchalee Chayanuvat2
Yunnan Technology and Business University, Kunming, Yunnan, CHINA;
Suryadhep Teachers College, Rangsit University, Pathum Thani, THAILAND.
1

zgh1988825@gmail.com, 2anchalee.c@rsu.ac.th

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to 1) investigate whether the gamified reading of picture
books method could improve young children’s reading ability, and 2) findthe attitude of young children towards learning picture books :using an
emotion questionnaire. This experimental research was conducted in akindergarten, located in Honghu City, Hubei province .224 third year
young children, aged between 5 and 6 years old, were divided into 7classes .The researcher used convenience sampling to get two classes of 60
young children after the pretest .The 60 young children were divided into
two groups, a control group (using the traditional method), and an
experimental group (using the gamified reading of picture books method),each having 30 young children, matched for prior knowledge of picturebook reading .A pre-post test was used to gather learning achievement
data .The findings revealed that the gamified reading of picture books
method was more effective than the traditional method in reading activity
to young children .The post-test mean score of the experimental groupwas 22.37, while that of the control group was 16.67 .The difference in thetwo scores was statistically significant .The experimental groupoutperformed the control group .An emotion questionnaire wasadministered at the end of each of the first four activities to compare
young children attitudes between the two groups towards learning picture
books .The data showed that there was no difference :the young children inboth groups were equally happy learning picture books .
Keywords :Gamified reading of picture books, Reading ability, Youngchildren
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, with the change of the public's concept of reading ability, theimplementation of early childhood education curriculum reform and relevant policies,
many kindergartens in China have realized that reading ability has positive value forchildren's lifelong learning development (Li et al, 2020; Nation, 2019).
The Learning and Development Guide for Children aged 3-6 years old (2012) pointed outthat young children should be guided to observe the pictures carefully, discuss the story
content in combination with the pictures, and learn to establish the connection between the
pictures and the story content, so as to help young children have preliminary reading
ability. The document also set out three goals for young children’s reading ability. First,
young children should be encouraged to listen to stories and reading books. Second, young
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children should have a preliminary reading comprehension ability. Finally, young children
should be allowed to express themselves willingly and preliminary develop their written
language expression ability.
In this context, the reading problem for young children becomes increasingly prominent,
especially the use of improper teacher methods: The most common is one-sided emphasis
on memory, with children being able to retell stories as the main purpose; the second is anemphasis on the text of the material to convey information to children, literacy instead ofreading; and the third is ignoring cultivation of independent reading habits (Gao, 2020; Gu,2020).
The young children’s developmental gains is impacted by the quality of reading (GoldinMeadow et al. 2014; Marulis, & Neuman, 2013; Wasik, Hindman & Snell, 2016). Creating
effective learning games for young children may be one solution. In games, fun in its
varied facets is a strong motivator (Ismail & Ibrahim, 2018). Studies have shown thatgamified reading of picture books has many benefits for young children including
supporting the development of knowledge acquisition and meaning making skills (Paris &Paris, 2003; Gao, 2020). Guidelines for Kindergarten Education (trial) (2001) mentioned"To create a free, loose language communication environment...... and through a variety ofactivities to help children deepen their experience and understanding of the work."
Gamified reading of picture books is an ideal teaching method for early childhood teachers
to develop young children’s reading ability. Characterized by a study as ‘fun’, ‘interactive’and ‘challenging’, learning through games enables young children to proactively solve
problems they see and improve their reading ability (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke,
2011; Hanus & Fox, 2015).
Therefore, this study intended to analyze the effects of gamified reading of picture books
on young children's reading ability so as to provide certain theoretical guidance andpractical suggestions for kindergartens to effectively carry out the method of gamified
reading of picture books.
LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Picture books
The concept of ‘the picture book’ is not a new concept, but because of availability of various
types of picture books and no clear boundaries between them, there are no proper definitionsof ‘the picture book’ .Picture books have been defined in a number of ways.
Picture books for young children should be simple and clear and colorful )Nodelman, 1981( .
As defined by Arizpe and Styles )2003(, picture books consist of text and pictures, ‘in which
the story depends on the interaction between the written text and images and where both havebeen created with a conscious aesthetic intention.’
NikolaJeva and Scott )2000( define that the picture book is a book type that narrates stories
through the interaction of verbal and visual pictures .The "picture book "cannot be simply
equated with "a book with pictures"; it is an independent book form, which emphasizes theinternal relationship between the text and the pictures.
The ‘picture book’ is identifed as a meaningful context for introducing new words toyoung children and enhancing their vocabulary skills )Lowman, Stone & Guo, 2018; Snell,
Hindman, and Wasik, 2015(.
Words and pictures play the important role of "storyteller "together. Pictures become themain body of books rather than the appendage of characters .Some picture books have no
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words but illustrations .They convey information through pictures and expand the space ofimagination in specific aspects )Cao, 2018(.
To sum up, the picture book is a kind of book form that expresses content and emotions by
pictures and words, or only by pictures .The two complement each other and are
indispensable.
2. The Method of Gamified Reading of the Picture Books
Deterding et al)2011( define “gamification” as the “idea of using game design elements in
non-game contexts to motivate and increase user activity and retention”. Using this concept,
gamified reading of picture books combines games with picture books deeply .It is not a
random or rigid combination of reading and games, but a seamless connection between
reading and games .Games serve as a catalyst for young children to deepen their reading
content.
Gamified reading of picture books has two levels of meaning :one is to treat reading as agame; the second is reading in a game. Creatively adding games to match the story’s plot
points is the optimum way of enhancing narrative flow )Kuo, 2013(. The basic approach of
gamified reading is to provide toys related to picture books, to encourage children to
respond to reading content in the way of games, and to encourage children to express
reading content in various forms )Gao and Zhou, 2007(.
In this study, gamified reading of the picture books is defined as a teaching method that
integrates diversified game elements into the picture book learning activitiesม, namely,
listening games, watching games, talking games, drawing games, jumping games, playing
games, thinking games. These rich and interesting game activities were expected to help
young children understand the content of the picture books.
3. The Traditional Method
The traditional method of teaching reading is often teacher-centered, with the earlychildhood teachers delivering the meaning of the text in an activity and the young children
assume the role of a listener )Şimşek & Erdoğan, 2021(. This methodology largely depends
on the teacher’s knowledge, didacticism and capacity to keep young children motivatedduring the activity )Khoshnevisasl et al, 2014(.
In literature, there are two traditional methods of teaching picture books: the noninteractive method and the interactive method .For a non=interactive method, earlychildhood teachers transfer the text of picture books to the young children, while young
children as passive learners are asked to keep quiet and sit in the same place at the sametime in order to comprehend the story. Teachers do not pause reading for asking a questionor giving additional information. (Işıkoğlu Erdoğan and Akay, 2015; Morrow, 2007(. For
an interactive method, early childhood teachers sometimes ask young children questions
and allow them to express their own opinions about the story and keep asking questions
without sticking a plan )Sénéchal, Cornell and Broda, 1995(.
4. Early Research Evidence :Gamified Reading
Galda )1984( considers that playing drama in reading activity is very suitable for young
children to improve their reading ability in kindergartens .This method can provide anenvironment for young children to choose, control and challenge, and help teachers tomotivate young children to think about the surrounding environment through their own
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drama performances. Roskos and Christie )2001( conducted a research about whether
game playing in reading activity can promote children’s literacy development .They agreed
with the major claims of 12 of the 20 studies, judging the research to be sound andcomplete .
These studies supply strong evidence that play game can serve literacy by: a( providing
settings that promote literacy activity, skills, and strategies; b( serving as a language
experience that can build connections between oral and written modes of expression; andc( providing opportunities to teach and learn literacy.
Cai )2018(demonstrated that the gamified reading aims to give full play to the game spirit
and education value of picture books so that children will have an all-round development
in rich game experience.Teachers instruction in reading activities should be based on acorrect attitude toward the game spirit and educational value of picture books and accurate
understanding of the instructional strategies.Teachers should try to satisfy "children's gamereading"experience and avoid knowledge-oriented teaching.
Chen )2019( mentioned that gamified reading can help young children quickly into reading
environment. Full of game elements reading activities make children's physical and mental
relaxation ease tension and quickly go into the fun of reading atmosphere; Reading with
games can help young children maximize their enjoyable reading experience .
Through the previous studies, it is found that the knowledge of picture book reading isquite mature, but the related research of gamified reading of picture books still needs to befurther studied. At present, the research on gamified reading of picture books is not onlylack of systematic and comprehensive discussion in theory, but also only a few earlychildhood teachers put it into practice, which provides a large research space for thisstudy.
OBJECTIVE
1 .To investigate whether the method of gamified reading of picture books could improveyoung children’s reading ability
2 .To identify the attitude of young children towards learning picture books :using an
emotion questionnaire
MATERIALS AND METHODS
1. Research Location and Population
The study was carried out in a kindergarten, which located in Honghu city, Hubei province,
China .There were 224 third year young children, aged between 5 and 6 years old, whowere divided into 7 classes .The researcher used convenience sampling to get two classesof 60 young children after the pretest. The 60 young children were divided into twogroups, a control group and an experimental group, each having 30 young children .The
two groups were taught by the same teacher .The pretest scores showed that both classes
were equal with respect to their current knowledge of picture books reading .
Therefore, the reason for choosing young children from high-level kindergarten classes
was that young children at this stage can read most of the pictures, understand the generalidea of the story, anticipate the content of the story, and answer questions and ask
questions about the content they do not understand.

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2. Research Procedure
The tests for picture book reading were administered by two adult test assistants during
school hours .The young children of high-level kindergarten were tested individually in aquiet room, and the tests lasted about 20 min per child .
The picture book “Do My Best” was faced down on the table .One of the test assistantselicited a reading attempt by saying to the child" :Read me this book ".If the child said thats/he could not read, the test assistant encouraged with, "Well, pretend you can .Pretendread it to me ".
After reading, some questions about the picture book’s content were asked by the test
assistant, such as“ :who’s in the story? Where does the story take place?” Given scoresaccording to the young children’s answers.
The entire sessions were audiotaped and checked against the tape by at least two otherteachers.

Figure 1. Lesson Procedure
3. Research Instruments
The following instruments were used in this study .
3.1 Pre-post test
In this study, a picture book named “Do My Best” was selected for the pre-post test of thecontrol group and the experimental group, which was not read by young children and has acomplete story, mainly paintings, less words.
According to the picture book’s content, the young children were asked to answer thematching questions .Twelve questions were asked from three dimensions of reading ability.
When it is finished, the answers are given corresponding scores. The scoring system is "0,1, 2 "three-level scoring method. For more information, please refer to the below:
2 scores are awarded to show the ability to integrate the answers of all aspects of
information; 1 score means the ability to cover only some of these aspects of incomplete
answers and 0 score means showing no answer or irrelevant answer.
Since the objects of this study are young children aged 5-6, there is no learning task ofliteracy in kindergarten, so literacy is not included in the scope of this study.

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3.1.1 Validity of the Pre-post Test
Three early childhood teachers were asked to validate the instrument using a content
validity technique known as the IOC Index )Item Objectives Concurrence( The test validity
was above 0.863.
3.2 Emotion Questionnaire
test -learning picture books, a non To measure the attitude of the young children towards
The instrument used was the .There were no right or wrong responses .instrument was used
, Not )3(, Neutral )4(, Happy )5( Very Happy :emotion questionnaire consisting of 5 faces.)1(, Very Unhappy )2(Happy

Figure 2. Emotion Picture Scale) Yilmaz, 2016(
3.3 Curriculum Design
Considering the young children’s development level, three picture books were selected foruse in this study, in order “I Like Myself”, “A Little Tiger’s Loud Voice” and “Dirty
Harry.”Take “I Like Myself” as an example to show the activity design.
I Like Myself

Activity1
Activity2
Story-telling game
Painting gamess
Figure 3. Schedule of Activities

Activity3
Role-playing game

Picture Book Title: I Like Myself
Design Intent:"I Like Myself "is a picture book that makes children fall in love with themselves .Piggy
in this picture book is full of confidence and heartfelt appreciation of herself, and thisenergy makes her shine. She's not beautiful or talented, but she takes care of herself anddoes what makes her happy. If she makes a mistake and suffers a setback, she will giveherself another chance to try.
Many children say "I like my father "or "I like my mother "to their dear parents, but very
few say "I like myself." In daily life, parents and friends always expect their children to
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learn from others' strong points, but ignore their own good points. Through this picturebook story hoped that children to improve confidence, and understand themselves, andlove themselves.
Activity Aims:
1 .Learn to communicate with peers.
2 .Cultivate young children's ability of observation and oral expression of pictures.
3 .Cultivate young children's creative painting ability.
4 .Get personal emotional experience and explore the information contained in picture
books.
Activity Design:
The early childhood teacher uses the gamified reading of picture book method to teachyoung children, taking three activities to complete one theme .
The first Activity
Step 1 :Warming Game
Please take a small mirror to see your own appearance.
T :Do you like yourself? What do you like about yourself? There is a piggy who likes
herself very much .Who can guess why the piggy likes herself? Let's go into the picture
books and have a look!
Step 2 :Story-Reading Hour
Before the beginning of the story, children are divided into different activity groups byusing the game of “driving a train” to ensure that the ability level of each group of young
children is balanced .In addition to listening, watching and speaking, the game ofobservation provides young children with the opportunity to think. In the form of readingteaching, the mode of collective reading --independent reading --collective reading is
adopted.
Step 3: Story-telling Activity
Using the speech games :the game is carried out in the form of group. Some pictures were
distributed to the young children .They need to sort the pictures and tell the story .It can
improve the flexibility of children's story telling.
The Second Activity
Step 1 :Painting Game
In the process of painting, young children use a small mirror to observe themselvescarefully and discuss with other children what they see in their eyes. Draw a picture ofthemselves on a piece of paper and say at least one good thing about themselves.
Step 2 :Show the Pictures
The early childhood teacher shows the pictures of the young children and ask them tointroduce themselves and tell their advantages.

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Asian Journal of Management Sciences & Education Vol. 11(2) July- October 2022__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Third Activity:
Step 1: Role-playing Game
Using role-playing games :The early childhood teacher and children explore together how
the piggy like herself. Pay attention to the production of the game, invite children toparticipate in the game arrangement and the formulation of rules.
4. Testing Timeframe
The pre-test was given at the beginning of this study, and the post-test was given after the
ninth activity .Both tests took approximately 20 minutes per child .
FINDINGSThe study was: 1(to demonstrate whether the gamified reading of picture books method
can improve young children’s reading ability; 2( To identify the attitude of young
children towards learning picture books :using an emotion questionnaire.
A comparative statistical analysis was done using the paired sample t-test and an
independent sample t-test, and the comparison used mean test scores, standard deviationand significance value.
1. Pre-test Scores
The first analysis is a comparison of pre-test scores of each group .Table 1 shows thosescores.
Table 1. Pre-test scores of both groups
Group

N

Control
Experimental

30
30

Full
score
24
24

M

SD

T

Sig(2tailed)

14.20
14.93

2.024
1.721

-1.512.136

Significance level :>0.05 not significant <0.05 significant
The control group mean scores was 14.20; the standard deviation score was 2.024 .In theexperimental group, the mean score was 14.93 and the standard deviation score was
1.721.
The 2-tailed significance value was 0.136, which indicated that there was no significancedifference between mean scores of the two groups .These data revealed that the mean pretest scores for both groups were similar .Thus, the two groups were equal with respect toprior knowledge of picture book reading.
2. Post-test Scores of Both Groups
The second analysis is a comparison of post-test scores for both groups .Table 2 shows
the post-test scores.
Table 2. Post-test Scores of Both Groups
Group

N

Control
Experimental

30
30

Full
score
24
24

M

SD

T

Sig(2tailed)

16.67
22.37

2.279
1.326

11.840.000

Significance level :>0.05 not significant <0.05 significant
The mean scores in the control group was 16.67, while the standard deviation was 2.279 .
In the experimental group the mean score was 22.37 and the mean standard deviation was
1.326 .
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Asian Journal of Management Sciences & Education Vol. 11(2) July- October 2022__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The results of the data analysis revealed that the post-test score for the experimentalgroup was higher than the post-test score for the control group. The 2-tailed significancevalue was 0.000, which indicated that there was significance difference between meanscores of two groups .Comparing the experimental group and the control mean scores, theexperimental group mean score was significant higher than the control score.
3. Pre-post Test Score Comparisons
Table 3 shows the result of the paired sample t-test of the pre-post test scores for bothgroups.
Table 3. A Comparison of Pre-posttest Scores

Group

Test

N

Mea
n

ExperimentalStandard
Differenc
e
1.721

Pre3
14.93
test
0
Post
3
22.37
1.326
-test
0
Control
Pre3
14.20
2.024
test
0
Post
3
16.67
2.279
-test
0
Significance level :>0.05 not significant <0.05 significant

Tvalu
e

Sig)2tailed(

-

.000

17.5
90
-

7.37
0

.000

The pre-test score of the experimental group was 14.93 and standard deviation was 1.721 .In
the post-test, the mean was 22.37 and the standard deviation was 1.326 .In the control group,
the mean score of pretest was 14.20 and the standard deviation was .024 .The mean of posttest was 16.67 and the standard deviation was 2.279.
The 2-tailed significance value of both groups were 0.000, which indicated that there weresignificant differences between the mean scores of the pre-posttest of the two groups .This
analysis revealed that both groups ’mean the scores increased from the pre-test to the posttest, but the mean scores for the experimental group was significantly higher than that of thecontrol group.
4. Young Children’s Emotion Questionnaire
Another objective of the study was to seek the attitude of young children’s concerning theirlearning picture books and if there were any differences between those in the control groupand those in the experimental group .
However, half-way through the nine-activity picture book learning programme, it became
clear that the young children in both groups enjoyed learning the picture books .The young
children in the control group enjoyed the traditional method as did young children in theexperimental group who were taught using the gamified reading method .Thus, use of theemotion questionnaire was discontinued .It is possible that because of their young age andtheir culture, the young children were happy with their teacher and with learning in general.
CONCLUSION
This study showed a nine-activity picture book learning programme, during which theteacher of the experimental group used the method of gamified reading of picture books to
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teach young children, and the teacher of the control group used the traditional method toteach the young children .The experimental group had a post-test mean score of 22.37
compared to the control group which had a post-test mean score of 16.67 .This difference
was significant .So, young children from the experimental group had a positive effect onreading ability by the Post- test )see Table 5 .(Given this spurt, this result indicates a nonnegligible effect of the gamified reading of picture books method.
The second objective was to obtain the attitude of young children about the learning
picture books .This was done through the use of non-test emotion scale instruments where
there was no right or wrong responses .The scale consisted of 5 faces :Very Happy, Happy,
Neutral, Not happy, Very Unhappy .Young children were to be asked at the end of eachactivity to indicate their attitude about learning picture books .However half-way throughthe nine -activity period, it became clear that the young children in both groups enjoyedlearning picture books .The young children in both groups rated learning picture books‘Very Happy ’at the end of the first four activities .It was decided that further use of theemotion questionnaire could be discontinued .The assumption that young children might
prefer one method over another method was not sustained .It appears that these young
children enjoyed learning picture books and that they seemed unconcerned about theteaching method .
DISCUSSION
The present study investigated whether the gamified reading of picture books method would
improve young children’s reading ability and also to identify the young children’s attitude
towards learning picture books .The quantitative analysis was used to collected data .First,
although different teaching methods were used, a significant increase was found in thereading development of young children in all groups .This mean scores increased was evidentof both group )the control group from 14.20 to 16.67; the experimental group from 14.93 to
22.37 .(The experimental group outperformed the control group .A possible explanation forthis finding is that the gamified reading of picture books method has a positive effect on theyoung children’s reading ability .Many studies have shown the developmental benefits of thegamified reading, such as promoting motivation and engagement, increasing reading speed,
expanding vocabulary, and developing learning and problem-solving skills) Attali& ArieliAttali, 2015; Chen, 2018 .(The gamified reading of picture books presents humanistic,
emotional interaction and entertainment properties, which is easier to be accepted by young
children and bring them novel reading experience) Heuvel-Panhuizen, 2016.( The Gamified
reading of picture books is an "edutainment" teaching method, integrating theory into
pleasant reading experience, which can better realize the educational function of picture
books.
Second, there was no significant difference about young children’s attitude towards learning
picture books .It is possible that because of their young age and their culture, the young
children were happy with their teacher and with learning in general .Altun, Erden andHartman) 2021( indicated that gender, time spent watching television, and computer use wereunrelated to young children’s reading attitude. It was related to reading environment, reading
habit and maternal reading attitudes) Prislin and Wood, 2005; Altun et al 2021 .(According to
Ajzen and Fishbein )2005(, background factors such as individual experience, culture,
education, income, and knowledge are instrumental to the attitudes that children develop in
relation to any behavior.

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This research attempted to explore the effects of two different teaching methods on young
children’s reading ability .The findings revealed that the gamified reading of picture books
method outperformed the traditional method .Clearly, it is important to provide young
children with more opportunities to be engaged with the gamified reading activity .Early
childhood teachers should adjust the games according to young children's reading needs andrealize that games are appropriate for the reading of picture books. For these children, only
reading for the purpose of understanding the text is not a major goal. Young children at thisage have high multi-sensory abilities. The gamified reading of picture books method is more
appropriate for young children's overall development than the traditional teaching method of
picture books.
The present study has several limitations that merit consideration .First, a limited number ofyoung children were included in the study, the generalisations to third year young children inother regions should not be made .Getting more robust findings requires further research inwhich a larger number of classes are involved .Second, the time period of this experiment
was only nine activities, this time period is too short to make any generalisations. In thisrespect, it is recommended to carry out a similar study with longer time. Finally, this study
only examined the effectiveness of the two different teaching methods and the young
children’s attitude towards picture books. Further studies can illuminate the effects of various
reading techniques on the children’s cognitive development, literacy skills and story
comprehension )Şimşek and Erdoğan, 2021 .(RECOMMENDATIONSRFirst, teachers of picture books are encouraged to use a gamified reading of picture books
method to teach their young children .Second, researchers are encouraged to carry out similar
studies but with children at different grade levels and, also, at other locations which differ
from the one in which this study was carried out .Lastly, the methodology used to carry out
this study could be a guide for a replication study.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author would first like to thank the three early childhood experts who were involved in
the validation of the pre-post test. In addition, the author wishes to thank the two earlychildhood teachers who are working in this kindergarten, helping her to test the young
children .Also, she is grateful to the principal of the kindergarten for allowing her toundertake this study, and to the two classes’ young children who were the happy study
participants.

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ISSN: 2186-845X ISSN: 2186-8441 Print(株) リナアンドルナインターナショナル, 筑西市,日本

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