Reading electronic books as a support for

vocabulary, story comprehension and word

reading in kindergarten and first grade

Presenter: Chia-Ying Wu

Instructor: Dr. Pi-Ying Hsu

Date: May 6, 2013

1

Content

Introduction

Literature Review

Methodology

Results

Conclusion

Reflection2

Citation

• Korat, O. (2010). Reading electronic books as a

support for vocabulary, story comprehension and

word reading in kindergarten and first grade.

Computers & Education, 55, 24-31.

3

• Reading a storybook to young children is

regarded as an important activity that supports

literacy development.

(Bus, Ijzendoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995)

Introduction

4

Introduction

• Children of today who live in a highly

technological era may be exposed to activate

electronic storybooks (e-books) which are

available on the Internet or on CD-ROMs.

(Korat, 2010)

5

• The study investigated the extent to which a

considerate e-book can support kindergarten

children’s language (vocabulary and story

comprehension) and word reading compared to

first graders.

Purpose

6

E-books as a support for oral language

• Vocabulary

Children’s rich vocabulary is considered to be one of the important vehicles for reading comprehension.

(Beck & Mckeown, 1999)

Literature Review

7

E-books as a support for oral language

• Story comprehension

CD-ROM storybooks contain hotspots which are integrated into the content of the story were found to foster children’s understanding of the story-line.

(Korat, 2010)

Literature Review

8

9

Literature Review

E-books as a support for word reading

• The e-book we developed was designed by

raking into consideration that word level

exposure by highlighting will support a better

word reading ability of young children.

(Korat, 2010)

• 1. Can our educational e-book can support

young children’s vocabulary, story

comprehension and early word reading?

• 2. Does this support differs for kindergarten

children compared to first graders?

Research Questions

10

1. Children from both age groups would benefit

from the activity with the e-book compared to

the control group.

2. Children from the older group would exhibit

greater progress in vocabulary learning and

word reading than those in the younger group.

3. That first graders would exhibit higher story

comprehension, especially in the story

production task.

Hypotheses

11

90 Israeli childrenFive kindergarten classes

Five first grade classes

Yuval Hamebulbal(Confused Yuval) by

RothElectronic books

Methodology

12

Participants

13

Kindergarten

First grade

Control group

E-book

Control group

E-book

• Main functions of the e-book

1. Read story only

2. Read story with dictionary

3. Read story and play

Methodology

14

• “Yuval, get up, its time, get dressed quickly

and go to kindergarten!”

Yuval yawns, he is still tired,

He collects his clothes very slowly

Straightens …

Stretches ….

Stretches an arm and a leg

Research Tools

15

The children were asked to choose the picture

that best illustrates the word’s meaning out of a

set of four pictures.

The total score for this task ranged from 0 to

10.

Research Tools

16

Vocabulary

to read nine words, each of which appears with

high frequency in the e-book

4 = correct reading of the word

3 = saying two correct sound of the word

2 = saying one correct sound of the word

1 = reading another word or saying “ I don’t know”

Research Tools

17

Word reading

asked eight right/wrong questions pertaining to

the book

When Yuval gets up in the morning he

stretches his arms, collects his clothes and gets

dressed.

Each correct answer received a score of 1.

Research Tools

18

Story comprehension

read the printed version of the e-book

was audio-taped

2 = very similar to the story content

1 = only partially similar to the page content

0 = not similar to the story content at all

Research Tools

19

Story production

Results• 2-way MANOVA of 2 (age group) X

2 (intervention group)

20

1.Children from both age groups would benefit from the

activity with the e-book compared to the control group.

• Means of children’s improvement in literacy score by age and treatment group

Results

21

M SD P

Kindergarten 3.95 1.12

.002

First grade 1.12 2.47

The improvement in word reading was greater in the kindergarten

group than in the first grade group.

2. Children from the older group would exhibit greater

progress in vocabulary learning and word reading than

those in the younger group.

• Means of children’s literacy in story production by age and treatment group

Results

22

3. That first graders would exhibit higher story

comprehension, especially in the story production

task.

• The e-book reading by children can be an

enjoyable and fruitful activity.

• The kindergarten children as well as first

graders benefit from this type of e-book.

Conclusion

23

Reflection

24

This study

•Electronic books

•Oral test

•Kindergarten vs. first

grade

My future study

•Print storybooks

•Paper test

•Kindergarten vs.

first grade

Thank you!25