Electronic Books: Children'S Reading and Comprehension: Shirley Grimshaw, Naomi Dungworth, Cliff Mcknight and Anne Morris
Electronic Books: Children'S Reading and Comprehension: Shirley Grimshaw, Naomi Dungworth, Cliff Mcknight and Anne Morris
Electronic Books: Children'S Reading and Comprehension: Shirley Grimshaw, Naomi Dungworth, Cliff Mcknight and Anne Morris
Oxford, UKBJETBritish Journal of Educational Technology0007-1013British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, 20062006384583599ArticlesElectronic booksBritish Journal of
Educational Technology
Abstract
This study investigates the differences in children’s comprehension and
enjoyment of storybooks according to the medium of presentation. Two
different storybooks were used and 132 children participated. Of these, 51
children read an extract from The Magicians of Caprona, about half reading an
electronic version with an online dictionary, and the rest reading a printed
version with a separate printed dictionary. The remaining 81 children read an
extract from The Little Prince, 26 reading an electronic version, 26 reading the
same but with narration and 29 reading a printed version. No dictionary was
supplied with this storybook. The type of medium did not significantly affect
the children’s enjoyment of either storybook, and while it took them longer to
read the electronic versions, this difference was only significant for The Little
Prince. For both storybooks, comprehension scores were higher for retrieval-
type questions than for inference ones. The use of the online dictionary in the
electronic condition of The Magicians of Caprona was significantly greater than
that for the printed dictionary in that condition. The provision of narration
in the electronic version of The Little Prince led to significantly higher
comprehension scores than when narration was absent.
Introduction
Techniques to aid and improve children’s reading skills and to motivate them towards
further reading are always of interest to educationalists and to those involved in edu-
cational research. Thus, it is unsurprising that the increased availability of children’s
storybooks in electronic format should be an area of research interest.
Both Reinking (1987) and Ambrose (1991) emphasise the need for a systematic
research to specifically examine the impact of electronic books on children’s learning.
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Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
584 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 38 No 4 2007
But what can computers provide that the ordinary printed book cannot to assist the
learning process? Torgesen (1986) suggests that for high-level comprehension pro-
cesses to take place, lower level processes, like rapid word recognition, must first occur.
More recent works by Oakhill, Cain and Bryant (2003) and Stothard and Hulme (1992)
have highlighted the role of working memory, text integration and ‘informationally rich
text representation’ as important contributors to comprehension skills. In terms of
working memory, poor comprehension skills have been shown to relate directly to poor
performance on working memory tasks (those tasks that require a switch between
storage and processing functions) (Oakhill et al, 2003). Features such as word pronun-
ciation, narration, sound effects and animations, which support the text, all help to
remove the effort from decoding individual words and allow the child to focus on
meaning (Lewin, 2000; Matthew, 1997; Miller, Blackstock & Miller, 1994). Many elec-
tronic books have these facilities. At the most basic level, they may come with some
form of digitised speech that provides word pronunciation and definitions to aid com-
prehension. Others have a fully digitised narration accompanied by highlighting of the
relevant text. Page turning is implemented through the use of forward and backward
arrows (Figure 1).
Many of the CD-ROM versions are more sophisticated, with actors reading the parts of
the different characters so that the story ‘comes alive’. Page turning may occur by
clicking on the corner of the page, thus replicating the experience of reading a conven-
Figure 1: Pages from the electronic version of The Magicians of Caprona showing the online
dictionary facility
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Electronic books 585
Figure 2: Pages from the CD-ROM version of The Little Prince. Narration facility was activated by
double-clicking on the swallow
tional storybook. Sound effects and animated pictures may also be features of CD-ROM
books. The information provided by these dynamic cues, in terms of illustrating and
integrating the meaning of the text, goes beyond that provided by the 2-dimensional
drawings found in the printed versions. The interpretation of the text provided by the
actors may help overcome any weaknesses that the reader has in terms of decoding the
vocabulary, syntactic ability and working memory (Figure 2).
An example of the gains obtained from electronic books can be found in Greenlee-Moore
and Smith’s (1996) US study. They found that for their sample of 31 9–10-year-olds,
when the narrative was long and difficult (as defined by readability using the Fry
Readability graph), comprehension scores were higher in the electronic condition. The
results were explained in terms of the benefits of instant pronunciation and definition
of difficult words in the electronic condition. Although children in the printed condition
could have received the same vocabulary help from their teacher, no child made use of
this facility. The authors suggest that one benefit of the electronic condition is the
privacy of ‘failure’; the request for help is private. Further, when children ask for help
from the class teacher, this involves a certain amount of ‘down time’ from the text.
Children generally prefer to read on, ignorant of some of the word meanings, than to
suffer delay.
The responses in Greenlee-Moore and Smith’s study were videotaped. The recordings
showed that while both groups were eager to read the books and to answer the
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586 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 38 No 4 2007
comprehension questions administered after reading, the CD-ROM group showed greater
enjoyment and enthusiasm for the task. The link between motivation and reading
success has long been recognised by teachers and educationalists (Adam & Wild, 1997;
Gambrell, 2001; Guthrie, Wigfield, Metsala & Cox, 1999). If the added features of
electronic books can increase the children’s enjoyment and engagement with the text
then this, too, may facilitate comprehension as well as their enthusiasm for reading.
A major problem with studies of this type is finding the appropriate ways of measuring
the learning gains. This complex process involves separating variables and devising
valid and reliable tests for concepts that are difficult to define. Many of the studies
previously carried out in this area (Burrell & Trushell, 1997; de Jong & Bus, 2004;
Maynard & McKnight, 2001; Ricci & Beal, 2002; Trushell, Burrell & Maitland, 2001;
Trushell, Maitland & Burrell, 2003; Underwood, 2000; Underwood & Underwood,
1998) have been small-scale and have relied on story retelling or multiple-choice
questions as a way of testing the children’s understanding of the story. The results have
been conflicting and often hard to interpret, with memory being a confounding
variable.
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Electronic books 587
• to identify the particular features of the medium that might be responsible for any
advantage in reading comprehension;
• to find out whether the children’s enjoyment of reading is affected by the medium
used.
Table 1: Features and functions of the electronic storybooks used in the present research and in
previous studies
Type of Research
Series/Booktitle electronic book studies
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Table 1: Continued
Type of Research
Series/Booktitle electronic book studies
Type of
Series/Booktitle electronic book Researchers
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Electronic books 589
Table 1: Continued
Type of
Series/Booktitle electronic book Researchers
Method
Design
Choice of storybook
There were several constraints on the type of storybook that was suitable for the study.
The story had to appeal to 9–10-year-olds, male and female, be of an appropriate
reading level and be available in all the different formats—CD-ROM, printed and down-
loadable. It also had to be a story that the children had not read before, or seen on video,
DVD or film as this could affect their scores on the comprehension test as well as their
enjoyment of the story.
In practice, it proved impossible to find a single storybook that was available in the three
different formats, so it was decided to use two different books, one available in printed
form and downloadable format, and the other one available in printed form and CD-
ROM. The chosen stories were The Magicians of Caprona (Wynne Jones, 1980) and The
Little Prince (de Saint-Exupery, 1943). Both texts were approved by the literacy adviser
for Leicestershire as being suitable for the age group being tested and appropriate for
both sexes. They were contrasting in terms of style and storyline but both could be
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590 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 38 No 4 2007
considered as quality children’s literature. (This was ensured by checking entries in The
Horn Book Guide Online and The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature (Carpenter &
Pritchard, 1995).
Comprehension tests
The comprehension tests were based on the English Key Stage 2 reading tests for
Standard Attainment Tests (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2002) and were
approved by the literacy adviser for Leicestershire as appropriate for the age group being
studied. The tests contained mostly multiple-choice questions that required the child to
ring the correct answer. There were also some questions that required the child to
answer with a single word, phrase or a simple sentence. Some questions involved a
direct retrieval of information and others required inference, both simple and complex,
or the interpretation of imagery in language. The children were allowed access to the
extract during testing to ensure that memory per se was not being measured. In fact, to
ease the process of retrieval, the children were directed to the appropriate chapter or
range of pages where the information could be found.
The children were matched across conditions in terms of reading age, chronological
age and, as far as possible within these constraints, in terms of gender. Controls for age
and reading age were confirmed by conducting t-tests on the two groups for The
Magicians of Caprona and by one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) on the groups for
The Little Prince. No significant differences were found. It was confirmed with class
teachers that neither storybook was present in their school library and that both books
were likely to be new to the children. Any child who, on initial questioning, claimed to
have previously read the storybook assigned to them was asked to read the alternative
text.
Extracts from both storybooks were chosen so that they contained sufficient informa-
tion for the construction of meaningful comprehension tests while not being too long
(2080 words for The Little Prince and 1634 words for The Magicians of Caprona).
If children had difficulty in reading the questions or needed extra help, this was provided
and taken into account at the analysis stage. The exploration of some features of the
electronic versions was not encouraged as this would have affected the necessary con-
trols. Thus, page view, orientation and text size were fixed unless real difficulties because
of a sight defect were experienced (something that occurred just once throughout the
study).
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Participants
Altogether, 132 children took part in the study and there were 72 females and 60
males. Of the total sample, 51 children read the extract from The Magicians of Caprona,
with 25 reading the printed version and 26 reading the electronic version. The remain-
ing 81 children read the extract from The Little Prince, with 29 being given the printed
version, 26 being given the CD-ROM version without narration and the remaining 26
having the CD-ROM version with narration. The age range was from 9 years and 9
months to 11 years and 2 months. The children were from seven different primary
schools in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The sample included chil-
dren from a variety of social and ethnic backgrounds, but all the children spoke English
as their first language. Reading ages ranged from 7 years and 7 months to 15 years and
3 months.
Procedure
Pilot studies
Two small pilot studies were conducted prior to the main study. These showed that
children took longer to read the extract than had been anticipated and became bored
with the task before starting on the comprehension test. Both extracts were shortened
to take account of this. There was also too much reading on the comprehension tests
for those who found reading difficult. The number of questions was therefore reduced
from 20 to 15.
Some children also struggled to provide written answers, commenting that they knew
what the answer was but could not quite ‘put it into words’. The comprehension test
was therefore changed to include more multiple-choice questions (8 out of 15). Four
of these involved retrieval while the other four involved inference. The rest of the test
was a mixture of retrieval- and inference-type questions requiring longer answers,
and two ‘find and copy’ questions that tested the children’s ability to identify textual
evidence. As some children found the find and copy questions difficult because of lack
of experience with questions of this type rather than of failure to comprehend per se,
it was decided to accept reformulated answers provided that the meaning was
retained.
It was also felt that asking the children about their enjoyment of the extract just after
they had completed the comprehension test might mean that their answers were biased
by their experience of the test. It was, therefore, decided to ask them immediately after
reading and before the comprehension test.
The study
The children worked one-on-one with a researcher in a quiet area of their school and
only those whose parents had consented took part in the study.
After checking that the child had no previous experience of the text, a short synopsis
of the story so far was read aloud while the child followed on a printed copy. The children
who were going to read an electronic version of the extract were then familiarised with
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592 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 38 No 4 2007
the equipment (Toshiba Satellite Pro) and the software. One of the features of the
electronic version of The Magicians of Caprona was an online dictionary. Double-clicking
on a word brought up its definition and activated pronunciation, and this facility was
demonstrated. The children reading from the printed version of this text were provided
with a printed copy of the Oxford Primary Dictionary (Allen, 2002) which was recom-
mended for their age.
The children who were going to receive the narration of The Little Prince on CD-ROM
were instructed to read the text on the screen as they listened. They were shown how
to activate the narration, and the headphones and sound level were checked for their
comfort. No dictionary was available with either the onscreen version or the printed
version of this text.
The children were asked to read the extract quietly to themselves and were discreetly
timed. When they had finished reading, they were asked whether they had enjoyed it a
lot, a little, or not at all. They were also asked whether they thought that they would like
to read the whole book.
It was explained to the children that they could refer back to the extract when doing
the comprehension test, and this was actively encouraged. Children who had received
the narration could use the text but were not allowed to activate the narration.
The time taken to complete the test was recorded for each child. No child was allowed
to struggle too much, and help or termination of the test was offered when this
occurred. The testing was terminated early on only two occasions. All departures from
the standard procedure were noted for later analysis.
For the purpose of blind marking, a coding system was used on the scripts, which
identified the participants but did not disclose the condition to which they had been
assigned.
Results
Computer skills
The children were generally very skilled at using computers and most schools that were
visited allocated regular time to the acquisition of information technology skills. In
schools where this was not the case, a corresponding lack of skills was obvious in the
children and this may have caused some small time delays in completing the tasks.
Time taken to read the extracts (median times are given with the range in brackets)
The Magicians of Caprona
The children took longer to read the extract from the computer than from the printed
book, and there was greater variability in the reading times (12 minutes (28) and 10
minutes (13) respectively). The Mann–Whitney test showed that this difference was not
significant.
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Electronic books 593
The Mann–Whitney test showed that children took significantly longer to read from the
computer, 18 minutes (28), than from the printed book, 14 minutes (23.5), U = 225,
p = 0.01.
An independent t-test showed that the difference in the scores between the two condi-
tions was not significant, t = 1.285, df = 49, p = 0.205.
The one-way ANOVA showed that the difference was significant, F2,78 = 3.413,
p = 0.038. The Tukey posthoc test showed that the children who had experienced the
extract on CD-ROM with narration scored significantly higher on the comprehension
test than did those who had experienced the extract on CD-ROM without narration,
p = 0.043. No other significant differences in the comprehension scores were found
between the conditions.
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594 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 38 No 4 2007
Table 2: Scores for different question types for the two conditions of
The Magicians of Caprona
SD = standard deviation.
Table 3: Scores for different question types for the three conditions of
The Little Prince
SD = standard deviation.
When the analyses were carried out on the different conditions, it was found that while
the mean scores were higher for both retrieval and inference questions in the printed
condition for The Magicians of Caprona (see Table 2), this difference was not significant.
For The Little Prince, a significant difference between the conditions was found,
F2,78 = 3.353, p = 0.04. The posthoc tests revealed that a significant difference existed
between the CD-ROM without narration group and the CD-ROM with narration group,
p = 0.055. Near significance was reached for comparisons between the printed group
and those who had CD-ROM with narration, p = 0.089. The scores for both retrieval
and inference questions were higher in the narrated condition (See Table 3).
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Table 4: Enjoyment ratings for the extracts from the two texts
Desire to
finish book
Little/Not
Book Condition at all Lot n No Yes n
Out of a sample of 51 children who read The Magicians of Caprona, only four children,
two from each condition, said that they did not enjoy the extract at all.
Out of a sample of 81 children who read The Little Prince, only nine children, two from
the CD-ROM without narration condition and seven from the printed condition said
that they did not enjoy the extract at all.
For analysis purposes and to meet the requirements of the chi-square test, these chil-
dren were combined with those who had rated their enjoyment as ‘a little’. Although
differences in ratings were found for the different conditions (See Table 4) for both texts,
the chi-square tests showed that these differences were not statistically significant.
The type of medium did not significantly influence the children’s desire to finish either
book.
Discussion
Time taken to read the extract
The children generally took longer to read the extract from the computer than from the
printed books. In the case of The Magicians of Caprona, this might be at least partially
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596 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 38 No 4 2007
explained by the children’s use of the online dictionary. However, no dictionary was
available for The Little Prince, and yet children took significantly longer to read the
extract from the computer than from the printed version. Nor would the problem seem
to be one of clarity of text. Apart from one child who had a mild visual impairment and
for whom the text was enlarged, no child complained that the onscreen text was too
small to read. Also, the quantity of text per page was less for the onscreen version than
for the printed version.
One major difference for the children reading onscreen was that they were unable to
follow the text manually, eg, using a bookmark or a finger. The children reading the
printed versions often used the bookmark for this purpose. This practice is not uncom-
mon in young readers, particularly when fluency of reading has not yet been estab-
lished. The inability to track the electronic texts may explain the longer reading times
for this medium. It is important to note, however, that while onscreen tracking was not
available in the present study, some manufacturers of children’s electronic texts have
addressed this requirement by providing highlighting of individual words as the story
is read (for example Johnston, 2004, Start-to-Finish series).
The children who had read the printed version of The Magicians of Caprona took longer
to complete the comprehension test than did those who had read the electronic version.
In contrast, the children who had read the electronic version of The Little Prince without
narration took longest to complete the comprehension test. As the problem did not seem
to be one of searching, a possible explanation may be that the two conditions, which
had slower test times, were the least exciting for that particular book and that the
children who had experienced them were less engaged with the task.
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Electronic books 597
of its novelty value rather than of actual need per se. This may still be seen as an
advantage of the electronic medium, for even if the dictionary usage is because of
novelty rather than of need, the habit of accessing it may become established in the
young reader. An alternative explanation for the lack of benefit obtained may be that
the definitions provided were not suitably matched to the reading level of the children.
At present, many of the electronic storybooks for children are accompanied by a dictio-
nary that is not tailored to the needs of the younger reader. That said, the benefits of an
appropriate online dictionary, compared with a printed one, are easy to see. It does not
require the child to search alphabetically, nor to remember the spelling of the word
while searching. Instant access means minimal interruption to the reading flow, and
any embarrassment concerning ignorance of the word meaning is private (Greenlee-
Moore & Smith, 1996).
While dictionary usage did not produce a significant increase in the comprehension
scores, this was achieved by the provision of narration. Narration benefited the chil-
dren’s ability to both retrieve information directly and to make inferences from the text.
The narration that accompanied the CD-ROM version of The Little Prince was by a well-
known actor. It is likely that this provision reduced the load on working memory, and
that the use of correct intonation and emphasis served to integrate the text and to
provide a richer context to the storyline. If, as Oakhill et al (2003) and Stothard and
Hulme (1992) suggest, all of these are important factors in the comprehension process,
then this extra provision could have led to the benefits observed. Furthermore, the
addition of animated pictures and sound effects in the narrated condition will have
added to the textual and contextual clues. Although children were not provided with
the narration when searching for answers, it is probable that they would have found it
easier to identify the relevant parts of the text when the initial input was so much richer
and easier to process than in the other two conditions. The added clues to the interpre-
tation of the text may also have assisted the integration of ideas within the storyline,
making it more likely that children would make the correct inferences.
Very few children found the narration to be a hindrance to them in their reading and
those who did tended to be more able readers who found the narration to be too slow.
Many children commented that the narration had been useful when words were diffi-
cult to read.
Conclusion
The children generally took longer to read an electronic version than a printed version
of the extracts. However, there was no significant difference in the children’s compre-
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598 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 38 No 4 2007
hension scores when they read the printed version, compared to when they read the
electronic version. The provision of narration was shown to significantly improve com-
prehension, both in terms of the children’s ability to retrieve information and to make
inferences from the text. The enjoyment of the extract was enhanced by narration, and
the use of the online dictionary was significantly greater than that of the printed
dictionary.
The study found that the main benefits to children’s reading of electronic storybooks,
compared with printed ones, were the provision of narration, accompanied by animated
pictures and sound effects that related directly to the storyline. Immediate access to the
definition of words was a feature that the children seemed to enjoy, but if benefit is to
be obtained from this then the definitions must be matched to the reading level of the
child. Electronic books that incorporate these features have the capacity to increase
children’s comprehension and enjoyment of storybooks.
One final point needs to be made, prompted by an online report of recent research using
interactive storybooks (Henry & Jones, 2006, The Sydney Morning Herald). The report
was headed ‘Interactive learning fails reading test’. The electronic book used in the
study was from the Living Books series (see Table 1). As the variety of electronic books
increases, it is critical that a clear distinction is made between the different types in
terms of the degree of interaction and animation that they offer and whether those
features are supplementary or incidental to the story (Trushell et al, 2001). Research
has shown that while some electronic books of the more ‘edutainment’ type may moti-
vate children to read (Adam & Wild, 1997) they can distract them from the story and
interfere with story retention (Trushell et al, 2001; Underwood, 2000). Failure to dif-
ferentiate between different types of electronic books can lead to an overgeneralisation
of results and selective press reporting. This in turn may limit the adoption of a valuable
resource for both teaching and learning.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the AHRB for funding the research reported here.
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