Examining the effect of a picturebook reading intervention on younger school age children with different reading skills and vividness of visual imagery

Abstract

This mixed-methods study examines the effectiveness of an intervention program designed to enhance the comprehension and interpretation of verbal-visual narratives, commonly known as picturebooks, among younger school-age pupils. The phenomenological approach explores how picturebooks influence comprehension in pupils with varying levels of visual imagery vividness, reading imagination, and reading comprehension skills. A total of 25 third-grade pupils participated in the study, 10 in the experimental group and 15 in the control group. The research used a quasi-experimental design that included content analysis, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews to assess pupils' responses to the picturebook intervention. The intervention program focused on determining the effectiveness of picturebooks for pupils with different reading abilities and strengths in visual imagery, while also suggesting strategies for their educational use. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the distribution and frequency of pupil responses across interpretive categories, providing an overview of trends in comprehension and inferencing. In addition, Fisher's exact test was applied to examine the statistical significance of differences between the experimental and control groups. The results supported the effectiveness of the intervention, confirming significant differences in deeper-level comprehension between the two groups.