Young Children’s Learning and Transfer of Biological Information From Picture Books to Real Animals

Abstract

Preschool children (N = 104) read a book that described and illustrated color camouflage in animals (frogs and lizards). Children were then asked to indicate and explain which of 2 novel animals would be more likely to fall prey to a predatory bird. In Experiment 1, 3- and 4-year-olds were tested with pictures depicting animals in camouflage and noncamouflage settings; in Experiment 2, 4-year-olds were tested with real animals. The results show that by 4 years of age, children can learn new biological facts from a picture book. Of particular importance, transfer from books to real animals was found. These findings point to the importance that early book exposure can play in framing and increasing children's knowledge about the world.

Impact of storybook type on kindergarteners’ storybook comprehension

“…They conducted a series of experiments which revealed that younger children, especially 3-to 4-year olds, were more likely to transfer solutions from stories about real people than stories about fantasy characters. Several other studies reached similar findings and conclusions (Ganea, Canfield, SimonsGhafari, & Chou, 2014;Ganea, Ma, & DeLoache, 2011;Ganea, Pickard, & DeLoache, 2008;Richert et al, 2009;Richert & Smith, 2011). These studies revealed that realistic storybooks contribute to children's book listening comprehension.…”

The cultural side of science communication

“…39-42). Recent evidence reveals that even preschool-aged children learn biological information from children's books and extend it to their reasoning about real situations involving living animals (42,43). Young children are also able to learn science vocabulary when they engage in joint book reading (44).…”

Pretend Play as a Context for Learning New Information

“…Children can learn facts about objects (Ganea, Pickard, & DeLoache, 2008), animals (Ganea, Ma, & DeLoache, 2011), natural selection (Kelemen, Emmons, Schillaci, & Ganea, 2014), and other types of general knowledge (Marsh, Meade, & Roediger, 2003) from realistic storybooks. In my own work, we showed that children could learn some novel information from a pretend context, but the inferences they drew differed from inferences drawn by children who learned the same information in a real context (Hopkins, Dore, & Lillard, 2014).…”

“…Young children have been shown to learn novel facts from stories. Preschoolers learned novel biological facts about animals (Ganea et al, 2011) and the principles of natural selection (Kelemen et al, 2014) from storybooks; they can even integrate facts learned across multiple stories (Bauer & San Souci, 2010). However, a number of studies have shown that children are more likely to learn novel information from realistic books than from unrealistic or fantastical ones.…”

“…Thus far, we have seen that children can learn new information from stories, including novel object labels (Ganea et al, 2008), biological information (Ganea et al, 2011;Kelemen et al, 2014), and problem-solving strategies Richert et al, 2009;Richert & Smith, 2011); learning is generally greater when the stories are realistic than when they are unrealistic, cartoonish, or fantastical. However, stories are not the only type of fictional world with which children engage, and relatively few studies have looked at transfer of information from pretend play, another form of fiction that is prevalent in the lives of young children.…”