Reading Touch Screen Storybooks with Mothers Negatively Affects 7-Year-Old Readers’ Comprehension but Enriches Emotional Engagement

Abstract

Touch screen storybooks turn reading into an interactive multimedia experience, with hotspot-activated animations, sound effects, and games. Positive and negative effects of reading multimedia stories have been reported, but the underlying mechanisms which explain how children’s learning is affected remain uncertain. The present study examined the effect of storybook format (touch screen and print) on story comprehension, and considered how level of touch screen interactivity (high and low) and shared reading behaviors (cognitive and emotional scaffolding, emotional engagement) might contribute to comprehension. Seven-year-olds (n = 22) were observed reading one touch screen storybook and one print storybook with their mothers. Story comprehension was inferior for the touch screen storybooks compared to the print formats. Touch screen interactivity level had no significant effect on comprehension but did affect shared reading behaviors. The mother–child dyads spent less time talking about the story in the highly interactive touch screen condition, despite longer shared reading sessions because of touch screen interactions. Positive emotional engagement was greater for children and mothers in the highly interactive touch screen condition, due to additional positive emotions expressed during touch screen interactions. Negative emotional engagement was greater for children when reading and talking about the story in the highly interactive condition, and some mothers demonstrated negative emotional engagement with the touch screen activities. The less interactive touch screen storybook had little effect on shared reading behaviors, but mothers controlling behaviors were more frequent. Storybook format had no effect on the frequency of mothers’ cognitive scaffolding behaviors (comprehension questions, word help). Relationships between comprehension and shared reading behaviors were examined for each storybook, and although length of the shared reading session and controlling behaviors had significant effects on comprehension, the mechanisms driving comprehension were not fully explained by the data. The potential for touch screen storybooks to contribute to cognitive overload in 7-year-old developing readers is discussed, as is the complex relationship between cognitive and emotional scaffolding behaviors, emotional engagement, and comprehension. Sample characteristics and methodological limitations are also discussed to help inform future research.

Narrative categorization in digital game‐based learning: Engagement, motivation & learning

“…With regards to learning outcomes, warnings are raised as to: (1) if narrative conditions in DGBL impose an excessive cognitive load on learners, which negatively affects their learning outcomes (Novak, 2015); (2) that cognitive capacity is consumed by following a game narrative, rendering the learner with insufficient capacity to think deeply about the academic material in DGBL (Pilegard & Mayer, 2016); (3) that switching between story text and processing of other information may cause cognitive overload with detrimental effects on learning (Ross, Pye, & Randell, 2016); and (4) that young children may be particularly prone to such overload, due to their immature cognitive and attention skills (Courage et al ., 2015).…”

Socio-material directions for developing empirical research on children’s e-reading: A systematic review and thematic synthesis of the literature across disciplines

“…Some studies have focused on both cognitive and affective outcome measures. For example, Ross et al. (2016) studied two kinds of shared reading behaviour in parent–child dyads: cognitive and emotional scaffolding.…”

Parents reinforce the formation of first impressions in conversation with their children

“…A total of 48 individuals participated in the form of twenty-four parent-child dyads (9 Mother-Daughter, 9 Mother-Son, 3 Father-Daughter, 3 Father-Son). Participant numbers were decided in advance based on previous research exploring parent-child interactions [29][30][31][32] Of the 24 children, 12 were 5-year-olds (12 boys, Mage: 66 months, age range = 60 to 71 months) and 12 were 6-year-olds (12 boys, Mage: 77 Months, age range = 73 to 82 months). A majority of children (20/24) were described by their parents as white British.…”