ABSTRACT
This present study examines the effect of reading literary fiction on school-aged children at two levels of Theory of Mind (ToM) understanding, that is, the first-order and the second-order. One hundred and eight children aged from 9 to 10 years (M = 120.5 months, SD = 4.19) participated; they were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. The experimental group had to read three genres of literature, that is, literary fiction, popular fiction and non-fiction, while the control group did other activities. The result showed that the literary fiction group achieved higher scores, which proved that this genre had a significant influence on the children’s first-order ToM [p = 0.04, χ2 (3, N = 108) = 8.55] but did not have a significant influence on their second-order ToM [p = 0.68, χ2 (3, N = 108) = 1.51). Finally, literary fiction had a more significant influence on the children’s total ToM understanding [p = 0.04, χ2 (3, N = 108) = 1.51] compared to popular fiction and non-fiction, as well as the activities conducted by the control group. This shows that reading a literary fiction could enhance the ToM of school-aged children (9–10 years-old).
