designing and researching e-books to support language & literacy

Designing and Researching E-books to Support Language & Literacy

Ofra KoratBar-Ilan University

E-Book ConferenceSeptember 27 -28, 2014 Phoenix, AZ

Selling e-books is rising steadily.

In March 2011 Amazon sold 150 e-books for every 100 printed books. E-book sales surpassed the sale of printed books.

Young children show motivation and enjoyment while reading e-books. (Greenlee-Moore & Smith, 1996).

Children age 5-6 spend 17 minutes a day reading e-books.

(Vandewater, Rideout, Wartella, & June, 2007).

Young children, especially those with difficulties may benefit more from multimedia than from single medium (Verhallen, Bus, & de Jong, 2006).

Printed books reading Language Early literacy?

E-books?

Young children are read printed books by adults, while they can “read”/listen to e-book without adults’ help.

Do e-books have the potential to enrich young children’s language and literacy when reading by themselves?

We research 43 Hebrew e-books published 1995 to 2002. (Korat & Shamir, 2004).

Conclusion: Most of the e-books did not include components that have the potential to promote language and literacy.

Decision: To develop e-books aimed at supporting language and literacy for research purposes.

Rational: Creating a model of e-book based on the idea of "edutainment“. (Underwood & Underwood, 1998).

E-book with multimedia effects Entertainment + stimulation for learning

We used 2 well known printed books

Three channels Read the story

Read with dictionary Read and play

Multimedia effects SupportText illumination word reading and writingDictionary word meaningRead and play HS PAAnimations story comprehension

Dictionary

Read and Play

Word Meaning - Receptive Children progressed significantly after 3 readings compare to control.

After 5 readings they progressed more than the 3 readings.

Phonological awarenessAll children progressed after 3 readings. Similar effects were for 3 and 5 readings. There is a limit to children's progress within a short time.

Children's progress : syllabic and sub-syllabic.Hot-spots on text that focuses on words sounds support PA.

Word ReadingNine words frequently used in the story's text (Shamir & Korat, 2007).

Five readings supported better than three. Three readings better than control.

A text that is simultaneously illuminated with the narrator’s reading supported word reading.

E-book reading without adults word reading. Advantage for e-books reading compared to printed books.

Word writingNine words frequently used in the story's text (Shamir & Korat, 2007).

Improvement in words writing after 3 readings.

A text that is simultaneously illuminated with the narrator’s reading supported word writing.

E-book reading without adults word writing.

Advantage for e-books reading compared to printed books.

Story comprehension and productionInformation What kind of work was done by the tractor? Inference Why do you think the tractor was sad?

After 3 readings all groups showed good story comp. in both levels.

With age appeared better story comp. and production (language use and content).

First graders produced a better story than K children (Korat, 2010).

K children comprehend the stories better than pre-K (Shamir, Korat, & Barbi, 2008).

SummaryIndependent reading of well designed e-books after 3 readings has good potential to promote not only language (word meaning story comprehension and production) but also early literacy skills (PA, word reading, Word writing). This is true for children from MSES and LSES families.

LSES children in some cases showed a greater progress.

Different literacy skills require different durations and repetitions of activities.

Future studies: we need to studyNew forms of e-books: internet, tablets, apps, etc.

More effects of multimedia: animations, hot-spots, interactivity.

Different aspects of literacy and language.

The retention of this learning.

We need a theoretical framework and principles on how to incorporate the e-book in different contexts of instruction at home (Korat & Or, 2010) and school (Roskos & Burnstein 2011).

Thank You Korato@mail.biu.ac.il

LSES MSES

Pre-k K Pre-k K

Word meaning 5 >0 5, 3 >0 5, 3 >0 5, 3>0

PA 3 >0 3 >0 3>0 Small improvement (ceiling effect)

Word reading 3 > 05> 3

3 > 05> 3

3 > 05> 3

3 > 05> 3

korato@mail.biu.ac.il

In March 2011 Amazon sold 150 e-books for every 100 printed books. E-book sales surpassed the sale of printed books. (Cain-Miller & Bosman, 2011).

Synergy multimedia e-books

Integrated operation of several factors (Neuman, 2012).

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts (Fuller & Applewhite, 1979).