Do Objects of Different Weights Fall at the Same Time? Learning about Gravity from Picture Books

Picture books are a primary source of knowledge for children. However, young children are rarely exposed to informational books and spend more time reading fiction. We examined how children age 4 and 5 learn that objects with different weights fall at the same rate from picture books. A realistic fiction and an informational book with identical images were designed and matched in words and reading difficulty level. A pretest and posttest were administered to 120 children. Each test contained 4 pairs of objects identical in size, where two pairs of objects had the same weight and two pairs of objects had different weight. Although generally all children improved from pretest to posttest, 5-year-olds learnt from both types of book genres, while 4-year-olds learnt only from the realistic fictional book. Finally, children reported enjoying the realistic fictional and informational genres equally.M.A.2018-03-16 00:00:0