Does word boundary information facilitate Chinese sentence reading in children as beginning readers?

Previous studies showed inconsistent results on whether providing word boundary information using spaces or alternating colors across words would facilitate children's Chinese reading performance. We speculated that this inconsistency was related to individual difference in the ability to adjust visual routines for reading established through prior experience in response to the word boundary information. We hypothesized that (1) children who had greater ability to change eye movement behavior according to the word boundary manipulation would benefit more in reading performance; (2) using spaces as word boundaries changed the global configuration of original sentences, which may require more adjustment from the established visual routine, leading to less facilitation. Sixty-three grade 2–3 primary school children. Children read regular Chinese sentences and sentences with either spaces or alternating colors as word boundary markers and answered related comprehension questions with eye tracking. Eye Movement analysis with Hidden Markov Models (EMHMM) revealed two representative gaze transition patterns through clustering: a more sequential and a less sequential pattern. As compared with regular sentences, when using alternating colors as word boundary markers, a larger gaze transition pattern change towards the more sequential pattern was correlated with a larger increase in comprehension accuracy. This effect was not observed when using spaces as word boundary markers. An instructional design should consider its potential costs on the cognitive processes established during prior learning, as well as the potential individual differences in the ability to adjust the existing processing strategy according to the new instructions. • We examined whether word boundary markers facilitate children's Chinese reading. • Children differed in the ability to adjust gaze patterns according to added markers. • Change to a more sequential gaze transition pattern predicted better comprehension. • This effect was observed with alternating-color markers but not with space markers. • Teaching design should consider individual difference and cost on existing strategy.