Cognitive control—the ability to execute goal-relevant responses in the presence of competing goal-irrelevant response alternatives—predicts academic achievement, delinquency, and occupational success. Assessing children's cognitive control is challenging due to the tedious nature of cognitive assessments and children’s low attention spans. This study examined whether a cognitive game-based assessment (GBA) may alleviate these challenges by investigating the construct and criterion validity of implementing game-based features into a traditional cognitive assessment, and the associations between GBA performance, academic achievement outcomes, and associated neural substrates in children ages 3-5. Performance on the GBA was significantly associated with performance on a traditional measure of cognitive control, functional brain connectivity, and mathematical and verbal test outcomes. Children also showed a stronger preference and higher ratings of enjoyment for the GBA compared to the traditional cognitive control assessment.

Experiences of contingent interactions like referential cues (e.g., caregivers pointing to relevant text and pictures) during shared book reading predict better reading and language outcomes (Landry, & Smith, 2007). However, it is unclear whether contingent responsiveness in a digital book could provide similar support for children in the absence of contingent feedback from an adult. The effects on story comprehension using an interactive book with content-related animations that activated contingent on children’s vocalizations were investigated, with a focus on whether the interactive book might be especially useful for children with less developed attentional control. The present study used a within-subject design with data from 69 preschool-aged children. The use of the interactive book exhibited significantly increased comprehension, and was also found to be especially useful for children with less attentional control. Importantly, the associations between attention and comprehension gains were not entirely due to variance shared with verbal ability.

Learning to read is often considered the most important skill taughtin school because reading is a gateway to other learning. Manychildren struggle to acquire this fundamental skill. Suboptimaldesign of books for beginning readers may contribute to thedifficulties children experience as close proximity between textand illustrations could promote attentional competition hamperingliteracy skills. The present work utilized eye-tracking technologyto examine how beginning readers allocate attention and whetherthese patterns are related to fluency (Experiment 1) andcomprehension (Experiment 2). Results suggest when readingbooks in which text and illustrations are in close proximity,children frequently shift attention away from the text. This patternof attention was negatively associated with fluency, but notassociated with comprehension. This line of research aims toprovide theoretical insights about design principles for readingmaterials that can be employed to optimize instructional materialsand promote literacy development in young children.

Learning to read is a critical skill; yet only a small portion of children in the United States are reading at or above grade level. Attention is one crucial process that affects the acquisition of reading skills. The process involves selectively choosing task relevant information and requires monitoring competing demands. Many books for beginning readers include illustrations, but this design choice may require learners to split their attention between multiple sources of information. This study employed eye tracking to examine whether embedding text within illustrations in children’s e-books inadvertently induces attentional competition. The results showed that spatially separating illustrations from the text in beginning reader books reduces attentional competition and improves children’s reading comprehension. This study shows that changes to the design of books for beginning readers can help promote literacy development in children.

This preregistered study examined whether extraneous illustration details promote attentional competition and hinder reading comprehension in beginning readers. Reading comprehension was highest in the Streamlined Condition (text + relevant illustrations) compared to a Standard Condition (text + relevant illustrations + extraneous illustrations) and Text Only Condition (no illustrations). Gaze shifts away from the text were highest in the Standard Condition, indicating increased distractibility while reading text with extraneous illustration details. Gaze shifts away from the text were associated with performance on an independent measure of attention, validating eye gaze patterns as an assessment of attentional allocation while reading. Lower comprehension in the Standard Condition was associated with higher gaze shifts away from text and lower scores on the independent measure of selective attention. This study suggests that illustrations can support reading comprehension, but only when they are optimally designed. Importantly, the removal of extraneous details did not decrease book enjoyment.

Becoming a proficient reader is a critical skill that supportsfuture learning. Toward the end of the primary grades,reading becomes increasingly automatized, and children beginto transition from learning-to-read to reading-to-learn. Yet,the design of beginning reader books may be suboptimal fornovice readers. Colorful illustrations that contain irrelevantinformation (i.e., seductive details) presented in closeproximity to the text may increase attentional competitionbetween these sources of information; thus, hamperingdecoding and reading comprehension. Study 1 examines thishypothesis by experimentally manipulating components of thebook design (e.g., presence/absence of seductive details) andinvestigating its effect on attention and reading performancein first grade students. In Study 2, we conduct an analysis inwhich we identify common design features in books forbeginning readers and examine the prevalence of designfeatures that were found to tax attention in Study 1 and inprior research. Collectively this work identifies an importantopportunity in which instructional materials can be optimizedto better support children as they learn-to-read.

Books designed for beginning readers typically intermix textwith illustrations in close proximity. Prior research suggeststhis standard layout may reduce literacy skills due toincreased attentional competition between text andillustrations. The current study extends this work byexamining whether manipulations to the book layout canenhance reading performance and explores whether individualdifferences in executive function and processing speed arerelated to children’s decoding and reading comprehensionwhen reading books which utilize the standard layout.Separating text and illustrations improved readingcomprehension. Preliminary results also suggest workingmemory, inhibitory control, and processing speed are relatedto reading performance.

Reading is a critical skill as it provides a gateway for other learning within and outside of school. Many children struggle to acquire this fundamental skill. Suboptimal design of books for beginning readers may be one factor that contributes to the difficulties children experience. Specifically, extraneous details in illustrations (i.e., interesting but irrelevant to the story elements) could promote attentional competition and hamper emerging literacy skills. We used eye-tracking technology to examine this possibility. The results of this study indicated that excluding extraneous details from illustrations in a book for beginning readers reduced attentional competition (indexed by gaze shifts away from text) and improved children’s reading comprehension. This study suggests that design of reading materials for children learning to read can be optimized to promote literacy development in children.