The spontaneous imbibition occurs during development of shale oil and gas by using technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Shale reservoir pore structure and mineral composition are the important factors that have an impact on shale spontaneous imbibition. The impact of pore structure，mineral composition and direction of lamination on shale spontaneous imbibition rate was studied through spontaneous imbibition experiments of shale samples，and the pore connectivity of shale reservoir was evaluated by using the slope of spontaneous imbibition curve. The results show that shale reservoir pore connectivity is poor and the slop of spontaneous imbibition curve is significantly lower than the theoretical value compared with conventional oil and gas reservoirs. Lamination direction will also have an impact on the spontaneous imbibition，and the slope of spontaneous imbibition curve tested along the lamination is usually higher than that tested against the lamination. But the experiment results of some samples also show that the slope of spontaneous imbibition curve tested along the lamination is comparable with that tested against the lamination，which is probably due to the fact that higher content of hydrophilic mineral in shale reservoirs can weaken the impact of lamination on the direction of water migration.Spontaneous imbibition behavior is closely related to the composition of the shale minerals. When the content of clay minerals is high，the original pore structure of shale changes under the effect of water swelling，which would result in the decrease of the slope of spontaneous imbibition curve if the experiment was repeated. When the content of brittle minerals，like quartz，in shale is high，the spontaneous imbibition curve would show little change in the repeated experiment，which indicates a good repeatability. The greater the slope of spontaneous imbibition curve is，the better the permeability is，and thus it is more conducive to the development of shale oil and gas.