Pupils' recall of an interactive storybook on CD‐ROM

Abstract

This small-scale study compares two groups of Year 4 (8/9 year-old) pupils either reading or playing an interactive storybook. The study considered pupils' recall of propositions, which formed the story setting and episodes, and of micro-propositions and characters' names, and pupils' responses to inferential items derived from the 'interactive storybook'. The study indicates that, whether reading or playing, pupils' recall of the story setting was sound, but pupils who had read the interactive storybook demonstrated greater recall of the story event structure than those who had engaged in interactive picture-play. Pupils who had played the interactive storybook demonstrated significantly greater recall of micro-propositions and names.

Talking stories on CD-ROM — How do they benefit their users?

“…The results would suggest that there is a comparison between accessing CASE and a poor recall of the story line. This is consistent with the findings of Trushell et al, 2003, andMedwell, 1999. Hypothesis one, 'Children will be more highly motivated to use a talking story than a conventional text' can be accepted because the participants showed high levels of motivation and enjoyment for wanting to read talking stories more than conventional books. This complements the findings of Underwood, 2000, who found that talking stories were highly motivating to children.…”

“…The most recent researchers in the area of talking books are Underwood, 2000, andTrushell et al, 2003. In two separate studies, they investigated whether diversions such as CASE affected pupils' comprehension of a storybook. The main finding of Trushell et ars research was that the more intensive the choice when clicking CASE, the more poorly a child performed on multiple choice questions.…”

The effects of CD-ROM storybook reading on Israeli children’s early literacy as a function of age group and repeated reading

“…For example, Okolo and Hays found that the low comprehension levels of poor second grade readers who used CD-ROM storybooks resulted from inconsistencies between the animations and the story line in the ebooks. In another study, fourth graders who read an interactive e-book recalled the story's events structure better than those who were engaged in the e-book's play version (Truschell et al 2003). Based on two recent content analysis studies of e-books for young children, one carried out in Holland with Dutch e-storybooks (De Jong and Bus 2003) and the other in Israel with Hebrew e-books (Korat and Shamir 2004), it might be suggested that most of the software currently available for children aged 3-8 is not very satisfactory as a tool for supporting literacy (for a more detailed description see Shamir 2004 andKorat 2006).…”

The Effects of Electronic Books on Pre-Kindergarten-to-Grade 5 Students' Literacy and Language Outcomes: A Research Synthesis

“…Trushell, Maitland, and Burrell (2003) investigated the extent to which interactive, cued animation and sound effects (CASE, or hotspots) may detract from children's understanding of the story structure and recall. In a quasi-experimental study, groups of students were assigned to either a Let me play group, which used an interactive e-book with hotspot animations and sound effects, or a Read to me group, which used the same e-book with these interactive features turned off and only a point-and-click word and line pronunciation option available.…”