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Volume 4,Issue 3

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26 March 2026

Research on the Interactive Mechanism between Picture Book Reading and Children’s Life Education from the Perspective of Embodied Cognition

Leyao Zhang1 Xiaodan Zhou1* Miaomiao Song1 Jing Zhang1
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1 Xi’an Eurasia University, Xi’an 710065, Shaanxi, China
CEF 2026 , 4(3), 62–67; https://doi.org/10.18063/CEF.v4i3.1726
© 2026 by the Author. Licensee Whioce Publishing, Singapore. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Picture books are important in children’s life education, but most common methods focus on storytelling and stirring emotions, and they treat children as passive receivers. This approach does not consider how a child’s physical experiences, like touching things, moving around, and interacting with others, basically shape how they understand life; we use the idea of thinking with the body to redefine reading as an active experience that involves the whole body. A picture book turns into a situation that involves the body; when children touch the pages, copy the characters’ actions, and imagine themselves being in the story, abstract ideas like care or loss become things they can really feel and understand. We look into how the child, the book, and the surrounding environment work together, and we explain in detail three ways this process works: sensory and emotional links, learning by moving and thinking, and making meaning from the situation. We offer some practical ways, such as setting up multi-sensory environments and connecting stories to real-life actions, to respect how children learn through their bodies; our goal is to create life education that children not only understand but also experience deeply, making it more personal and long-lasting.

Keywords
Body-based thinking
Reading picture books
Life education for children
Learning through the body
Sensory and movement experiences
Meaning creation
Funding
National College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program, “‘Who am I: Huidu Program’ Exploring Life with Children through Gentleness and Courage” (Project No.: S202412712060); The 14th Five-Year Plan Project of Educational Science of Shaanxi Province, “Characteristics and Improvement Paths of Parenting Anxiety Among Young Teachers in Compulsory Schools in Shaanxi Province” (Project No.: SGH22Q221); The Key Research Project of the School of Humanities and Education, “Xi’an Eurasia University, Characteristics and Improvement Paths of Parenting Anxiety Among Young Teachers in Compulsory Schools in Shaanxi Province” (Project No.: RW202203Z)
References

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[9] Kang CY, 2002, Picture Storybooks and Preschool Children’s Development. Journal of Beijing Normal University (Humanities and Social Sciences), (4): 20–27.

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[11] Zhu ZQ, 2020, Why Are Picture Books So Good? New Century Publishing House, Beijing.

[12] Zhou J, 2015, Research on Early Reading Development and Education. Educational Science Publishing House, Shanghai.

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