Integrating Games into Picture Books to Facilitate the Development of Social Emotions in Preschoolers: An Empirical Study on the Positive Effects of Game-Combined Guided Reading of Picture Books on Social Emotional Development in Preschoolers

This 6-week experimental study aimed to examine the effects of game-combined guided reading of picture books on children’s social emotional development. Pre- and post-test design was used among a sample of 81 children and their parents from 3 senior classes in a Shanghai public kindergarten. The participants were divided into five groups: guided reading group, self-reading group, reading-with-listening group, and two control groups. In both pre- and post-tests, children’s parents were administered measurement “The Scale of School Readiness in Emotional and Social Areas for Children”. The guided reading group was asked to read picture books by following the instructions, the self-reading group read the picture books by themselves, while in the reading-with-listening group, the investigator read the stories out loud to the children and pointed to the text. The two control groups did not read picture books, and the second control group was mainly used to investigate the effects of the pre-test. The results indicated that all types of reading had significant effects on the improvement of children’s social-emotional development with difference across the groups. The game-combined guided reading had more significant effects on children’s interpersonal relationships and self-awareness development than the other two reading styles, but the effect on children’s moral development was at the statistically marginal level and was significantly higher in the other groups. Our data suggest that picture book reading is effective in promoting children’s social-emotional development. Furthermore, game-combined guided reading is suitable for children’s psychological characteristics, and has much greater promoting effects on their social-emotional development. If adults could add mini games to the reading, it would enhance children’s positive experience and contribute to their social-emotional development.