Proxemics in reading: how elementary schoolchildren approach the text according to their age, context and reading competence level

Abstract

Some readers distance themselves from the text they are reading, others look at it and approach it from their seats, others come closer covering the text, touching it or laying their arms in the surrounding spaces, and many other readers seize the text making it theirs, placing it closer to them. In the past recent years, the study of proxemics includes the relationships of distance, contact and interaction that people establish with furniture, architecture and objects. As an extension of this idea, this study aims to describe and explore how a sample of 72 schoolers interacts with the text in the course of an individual activity that they do from a desk at school. We also analyze the connection between the proxemics of the participants and their age, school and reading competence. We asked participants to read a short story that was appropriate to their age and we captured a drawing of their proxemics in relation to the text (location and angle of the shoulders, trunk, arms, hands and head). After analyzing the different drawings, we concluded that 4 proxemic categories with different versions could be extracted from the corpus. We found that the majority of readers chose to lean out the text, looking at it, although readers who according to their teachers had a higher level of reading competence would approach the text by holding it or either they would appropriate the text by raising it. The categories that showed a better proximity to the text stood out among second grade participants. The use of a finger-pacer strategy experienced a fall among fourth grade readers, but we observed an increase in the use of this strategy again among sixth grade schoolers. Finally, we found evidence that the school context influences the proxemic behavior of learners.