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Reading minds: the relation between children's mental state knowledge and their metaknowledge about reading
Serena Lecce1, Silvia Zocchi, Adriano Pagnin
1Department of Psychology, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy. slecce@unipv.it
Child Development
|November 17, 2010
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Educational Psychology
Background:
- Understanding children's theory of mind, including mental state knowledge, is crucial for cognitive development.
- Metaknowledge about reading, or knowing how reading works, is a key component of literacy acquisition.
- The relationship between a child's understanding of mental states and their reading comprehension skills requires further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the relationship between children's mental state knowledge and their metaknowledge about reading.
- To investigate whether cognitive and emotion mental state knowledge uniquely predicts later reading metaknowledge.
- To explore these relationships across different age groups and over time.
Main Methods:
- Two studies were conducted involving children aged 9, 10, and 11 years.
- Participants completed tasks assessing verbal ability (VA), metaknowledge about reading, and mental state knowledge (cognitive and emotion).
- Study 2 employed a cross-lagged panel design to examine predictive relationships over time.
Main Results:
- A significant positive relationship was found between early cognitive mental state knowledge and later metaknowledge about reading.
- This relationship remained significant even after controlling for verbal ability.
- Emotion mental state knowledge did not show a significant predictive relationship with reading metaknowledge.
Conclusions:
- Cognitive aspects of children's theory of mind are closely linked to the development of reading metaknowledge.
- These findings highlight the interconnectedness of understanding the mind and developing literacy skills.
- Future research should continue to explore the nuances of these developmental connections.
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