Chinese preschool children’s comprehension of a picture storybook

This chapter explores 3 to 6 year old Chinese children’s comprehension of a picture storybook The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The results show: (1) Chinese children’s understanding of images, actions and characters’ states improves with age; (2) Children develop their understanding of images first, followed by actions and then characters’ states; (3) It is easier for children to understand images prominent in pictures than those not prominent in pictures or containing culture-specific information with which children are not familiar, actions represented directly through the relationship of different images than those actions which require making a connection with preceding and following pictures, and characters’ states represented by visible information such as size and colour than those less visible or age-appropriate.