We compared the effects of children's reading of an educational electronic storybook on their emergent literacy with those of being read the same story in its printed version by an adult. We investigated 128 5-to 6-year-old kindergarteners; 64 children from each of two socio-economic status (SES) groups: low (LSES) and middle (MSES). In each group, children were randomly assigned to one of three subgroups. The two intervention groups included three book reading sessions each; children in one group individually read the electronic book; in the second group, the children were read the same printed book by an adult; children in the third group, which served as a control, received the regular kindergarten programme. Pre-and post-intervention emergent literacy measures included vocabulary, word recognition and phonological awareness. Compared with the control group, the children's vocabulary scores in both intervention groups improved following reading activity. Children from both interventions groups and both SES groups showed a similarly good level of story comprehension. In both SES groups, compared with the control group, children's phonological awareness and word recognition did not improve following both reading interventions. Implications for future research and for education are discussed. Keywordselectronic storybook, emergent literacy, kindergarteners, SES.The large availability of electronic books (e-books) in the market today poses a novel situation in which kindergarteners can 'read' or listen to storybooks independently. This development holds great promise and makes it imperative to determine how much the use of this new type of software affects young children's language (e.g. vocabulary and story comprehension) and emergent literacy levels (e.g. word recognition and phonological awareness). This comparison is interesting, especially regarding their emergent literacy development, because of the unique features that the storybook software offers which are not available in the printed version.Many e-books include different multimedia effects, such as written text, oral reading, oral discourse, animations, music and sound effects. The oral reading of the text by the narrator, accompanied by the highlighted text, can provide users with insights into the nature of the written text by allowing the children to carefully follow the written words, phrases or passages which are being read out to them. Sometimes e-books include optional hidden hot spots which can be activated by the user and which elaborate on the illustrations or the text. Such activity has the potential to expand the children's knowledge of the story events by adding information that does not appear in the original story text. Sometimes clicking on a glowing word of the text might provide the children an explanation of a word, the meaning of which is not yet known to the young child.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of activity with an educational electronic book (e-book), as compared with adult reading of the printed version of the same book, on the vocabulary, phonological awareness as well as concept about print of preschool children at risk for learning disabilities. The study involved the participation of 110 children aged 5-7. All participants were identified as having developmental delays placing them at risk for learning disabilities. The sample was randomly assigned to three groups: activity with the e-book, listening to the book's printed version read by an adult (reading-as-usual) and a control group. The findings indicated that the children exposed to the e-book displayed significantly higher emergent literacy improvement (vocabulary and phonological awareness) when compared with the children who participated in the other two groups. These findings and their implications are discussed.
The effects of electronic book (e-book) and printed book reading on children's emergent reading with and without adult instruction were investigated. One hundred twenty-eight 5-to 6-year-old kindergarten children from low SES families were randomly assigned to one of four groups (32 children each):(1) independently reading the e-book (EB); (2) reading the e-book with adult instruction (EBI); (3) reading the printed book with adult instruction (PBI); and (4) receiving the regular kindergarten program (control). The three intervention groups included four book-reading sessions each. Pre-and post-intervention emergent reading measures included concept about print (CAP), word reading, and phonological awareness. The results showed that the EBI group achieved greater progress in word reading and CAP than all other groups. The EBI group also achieved greater progress in phonological awareness than the EB and the control groups. Implications for future research and for educators are discussed.
This replication study of Hebrew versus Dutch electronic books for young children was based on De Jong & Bus's content analysis, which explored whether e-books are appropriate supports for young children's literacy development. Our criteria for analysing 43 Hebrew e-books for young children included book processing, multimedia in pictures, multimedia connected to printed or spoken text, interactivity of pictures, interactive legibility, printed text quality, and congruence to story content. Like Dutch e-books, currently available, Hebrew e-books have no uniform components design and are unsatisfactory supports for children's literacy. Although most Hebrew e-books did not include hidden hot-spots that could be activated, when included, their congruence with the storyline was good. Recommendations for CD e-storybook designers and practical implications for educators are discussed.
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