When (and how) interacting with technology-enhanced storybooks helps dual language learners.

Abstract

In a meta-analysis, Takacs, Swart, and Bus (2015) found that when children listen to multimedia electronic storybooks, comprehension is higher than when listening to a traditional oral reading of the story. However, adding interactive features reduced the benefit, and for at-risk children, the interactive features reduced comprehension to below that when listening to the reading. Here we report a contrasting effect. Namely, a type of interactive feature that we call simulation has a large positive benefit on story comprehension in a multimedia environment for dual language learners. In addition, we show that combining simulation with a modicum of support in the native language (in this case, Spanish) produces additional benefits on reading comprehension. That is, when children are poor decoders but have good English-language skills, or when they are good decoders but have poor English-language skills, adding Spanish support to simulation makes up for the deficit and increases performance when reading in English. We trace the differences between our findings and those reported by Takacs et al. to the types of interaction used. In the Takacs et al. findings, the interactive features did not enhance story meaning. In the current research, simulation was specifically designed to highlight meaning. Thus, simulation and Spanish support may be effective for improving comprehension when dual language learners are reading in English.

Motor-system dynamics during naturalistic reading of action narratives in first and second language

“…Indeed, in the “Moved by Reading” paradigm ( Adams et al, 2018 ; Walker et al, 2017 ), children engage in embodied simulations by first moving computer images through physical actions that reflect the meaning of sentences in a text, and later creating internal simulations of the text via imagery. Upon doing so, children exhibit significantly better comprehension than controls ( Adams et al, 2018 ), as long as they are good at word decoding ( Walker et al, 2017 ). In line with these antecedents, our research indicates that earliness of language exposure and attained proficiency also represent subject-level variables modulating embodied effects.…”

“…Now, except for a few works that have explored comprehension of naturalistic narratives in bilinguals within the simulation theory framework ( Adams et al, 2018 ; Walker et al, 2017 ), this empirical corpus is marked by a major shortcoming: its virtually null ecological validity. Indeed, while the above studies involved randomized series of disconnected and (pseudo)randomized items (for a review, see Kogan et al, 2020 ), daily language processing is based on context-rich texts characterized by cohesion, coherence, and unfolding semantic relations ( Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014 ).…”

How and Why to Read and Create Children's Digital Bookx

“…The benefits of interactive features for children's language outcomes hold not only for children's first language but also if they are learning a second language. Walker, Adams, Restrepo, Fialko and Glenberg (2017) examined how children who were not native English speakers performed on different tasks of reading comprehension when the digital books they read contained additional support in Spanish. They found that adding some interactive support in children's native language improved these children's performance, since it supported their understanding of the story meaning.…”

Using Interactive E-Book User Log Variables to Track Reading Processes and Predict Digital Learning Outcomes

“…With the embedded interactive features, digital literacy environments allow for collecting information from the readers and provide options of content and individualized support (McEneaney, 2006). In return, readers can actively choose their preferred content (Bryan et al, 2003), monitor their comprehension (Boteanu et al, 2016), or seek help when necessary (Walker et al, 2017). To this end, this study aims to explore the potentiality of using interactive e-books, as a practice of stealth assessment to track students' reading processes and predict word knowledge and strategic reading outcomes.…”