The effect of attention shifting on Chinese children's word reading in primary school.

Background: This study explored the effects of attention shifting on Chinese children's word reading.

Objective: The sample consisted of 87 fourth-grade children from Shaoxing City, China.

Methods: The students completed measures of the attention shifting task, reading accuracy test, reading fluency test, and rapid automatized naming test.

Results: The results showed that reading fluency was significantly correlated with attention shifting scores, specifically with tag1 and tag6 (ps < 0.05). The reading accuracy score was also significantly correlated with tag6 (p < 0.05). According to the regression analysis of attention shifting on word reading, even when controlling for rapid automatic naming, attention shifting significantly affected word reading fluency at approximately 600 ms (p = .011). Attention shifting did not affect children's word reading accuracy.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that attention shifting is significantly associated with children's word reading. Educators should focus on developing children's attention shifting to improve their word reading ability.