"Understanding Preschool Children's Reading Engagement and Learning with Interactive eBooks"

AERA 2018 Annual Meeting: “The Dreams, Possibilities, and Necessity of Public Education”
April 13-17, 2018
New York

Title: "Understanding Preschool Children's Reading Engagement and Learning with Interactive eBooks"
Authors: Ying Xu, Joanna Yau, Stephanie Reich

Abstract

In this experimental study, preschool children were assigned to read an interactive storybook independently or a paper-based version of the same book with an adult. We compared children's engagement behaviors during reading (i.e., verbal comments, emotion expression, and attention) and the association between engagement behaviors and reading comprehension across the two conditions. Results suggested that reading condition had a significant effect on children’s verbal comments and emotional expression. The relation between engagement behaviors and comprehension were also found to differ between conditions. Given the prevalence of interactive storybooks for young children, this study offers important insights into early literacy development in digital contexts.