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Developing an Educational E-Bookfor Fostering Kindergarten Children'sEmergent LiteracyAdina Shamir a & Ofra Korat aa School of Education , Bar-Ilan University , Ramat-Gan, Israel ,52900Published online: 08 Sep 2008.
To cite this article: Adina Shamir & Ofra Korat (2007) Developing an Educational E-Book for FosteringKindergarten Children's Emergent Literacy, Computers in the Schools: Interdisciplinary Journal ofPractice, Theory, and Applied Research, 24:1-2, 125-143
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Adina ShamirOfra Korat
Developing an Educational E-Bookfor Fostering Kindergarten Children’sEmergent Literacy
ABSTRACT. This preliminary study investigated the effects of a noveleducational electronic book (e-book) developed by the authors to furtherkindergarteners’ emergent literacy skills within a “paired-learning” ver-sus “individual learning” context. Of the 72 children randomly chosenfrom three kindergartens in a low SES township in the country where theresearch was conducted, 24 were randomly assigned to work individu-ally and 48 (24 pairs) to work in pairs during the three e-book activitysessions. Pre- and post-intervention emergent literacy measures includedword meaning, word recognition, emergent writing, phonological aware-ness, and letter naming. The findings show that overall emergent literacylevels of children in both learning groups improved from pre- to post-intervention. Implications for educators and e-book designers are dis-cussed. doi:10.1300/J025v24n01_09 [Article copies available for a fee from TheHaworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:<[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>© 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. E-books, emergent literacy, kindergarteners, pairedlearning
.
ADINA SHAMIR is Assistant Professor, School of Education, Bar-Ilan University,Ramat-Gan, Israel 52900 (E-mail: [email protected]).OFRA KORAT is Assistant Professor, School of Education, Bar-Ilan University,Ramat-Gan, Israel 52900 (E-mail: [email protected]).
Computers in the Schools, Vol. 24(1/2) 2007Available online at http://cits.haworthpress.com
© 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J025v24n01_09 125
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INTRODUCTION
The ever-increasing inclusion of computers in schools and kindergar-tens as we enter the twenty-first century acknowledges this technology asan important context for supporting children’s cognitive developmentand learning (see, e.g., Clements, Nastasi, & Swamnathan, 1993; Smith,2001; Valmont, 2000). Children are nowadays exposed to a vast cata-logue of software in different domains developed mainly by commer-cial companies. Along with these trends, it has become evident that theeffectiveness of computer-assisted learning (CAL) depends on the matchbetween teaching goals, learner characteristics, and software design(Haugland & Wright, 1997; McKenna & Watkins, 1996; Valmont,2000).
One type of software to which young children are exposed is the elec-tronic book (e-book). Educators and researchers have pointed out thissoftware’s potential to support the child’s language and literacy devel-opment (Glasgow, 1996-1997; Matthew, 1996; Reinking, 1997; Smith,2001). However, research on this issue is in its formative stages, withthe available evidence regarding the efficacy of e-books still inconsis-tent. In the current study, we investigated the effectiveness of theeducational electronic book developed by the authors, both of whomare educators, aimed specifically at supporting kindergarteners’ emer-gent literacy. Considering the research indicating the contribution ofpeer-learning to school children’s achievements (O’Donnell & King,1999; Topping & Ehly, 1998) and the observed tendency for youngchildren to work on computers in small groups, mainly in pairs (Lewin,1998), the current study investigated the contribution of paired-learningwith e-books as well.
Theoretical Background
Research on children’s emergent literacy conducted over the last30 years has shown that acquisition of written language starts beforeformal schooling (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982; Teale & Sulzby, 1986;Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001). Findings have also been obtained in sev-eral countries showing that the gap between school children who attainhigh-level literacy and those who do not may originate during thepre-school period (Korat, Bachar, & Snapir, 2003; Burgess, Hecht, &Lonigan, 2002). Moreover, recent studies indicate that children’s emer-gent literacy level in kindergarten and first grade represents an impor-tant predictor of future reading success in school (Scarborough, 2001;
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Whitehurst, 1999). This accumulated evidence points to the kindergar-ten years as crucial for literacy development and success in school.Thus, in the present study we focused on one option for fostering youngchildren’s literacy, that is, use of an educational e-book specificallydesigned for this study.
E-books for young children (ages 3 to 8), also referred to as “livingbooks” or “CD-ROM storybooks,” are a form of interactive digital nar-rative that includes multimedia effects such as written text, oral reading,oral discourse, music, sound effects, and animations. This interactivitycan provide insights into the nature of the written text by allowingperformers/readers to carefully follow the written words, phrases, orpassages that are orally pronounced by the storybook narrator. Such ex-posure has the potential to advance children’s literacy by developingtheir recognition of the written text (words and letters), enriching theirvocabulary (Segers & Verhoeven, 2002), developing their reading com-prehension skills, and increasing their motivation to read (Glasgow,1996-1997; Matthew, 1996; Reinking, 1997; Smith, 2001). E-bookshave also been found to contribute to the advancement of children’s lit-eracy in areas such as phonological awareness (Chera & Wood, 2003;Wise et al., 1989).
We should note that along with these initial findings attesting to theadvantages of reading e-books, researchers have alerted us to some ofthe medium’s limitations. According to the studies performed, the verymeans that arouse curiosity and motivation among children (i.e., thevarious multimedia options they can individually activate) often merelyamuse without contributing to learning (DeJong & Bus, 2003; Matthew,1996). This is especially true for multimedia options and games that donot directly support story content. That is, by distracting children, theseelements may interrupt the story’s continuity and forestall children’sability to comprehend the main theme and draw conclusions.
Recent evaluations of readily available e-books (Korat & Shamir,2004b; DeJong & Bus, 2003) have revealed major discrepancies in theirquality and potential to support literacy. Based on analyses of thesee-books, it was proposed (Shamir & Korat, 2006) that more attention bepaid to choosing and designing e-books that effectively use specializedelectronic and interactive media as well as support children’s under-standing of the story and explorations of the written text. Evaluation ofthe available e-books revealed that e-book designers should placegreater stress on creating activities, usually appearing as hotspots oper-ated by the children, that support children’s story understanding, ex-pand their knowledge, and help them read the text either independently
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or with the narrator. Such activities should improve children’s metalin-guistic awareness of the components of written language (letters, words,phrases) and enable them to become aware of the relationship betweenthe oral and the written language–an important linguistic activity in it-self for beginning readers (Clay, 1989; Sulzby, 1991). A further conclu-sion derived is that designers should include animated dictionaries inthe e-book in order to expand young children’s vocabulary as well.
Research has likewise revealed that many e-books include the readand play option in the same mode (Korat & Shamir, 2004b; DeJong &Bus, 2003), a combination that distracts children from the story line(DeJong & Bus, 2002). Designing e-books with games placed on a sep-arate track–rather than integrated into the story plot–might be prefera-ble. Additionally, the evaluation suggests that e-books should includemore activities designed to expand alphabetic knowledge and phono-logical awareness, skills contributing to children’s oral and written lan-guage, and reduce those designed only to develop motor-visual skills.
Based on these findings, the authors developed a novel e-book,grounded in educational theory, which uses the advantages of interac-tive media to motivate and amuse children at the same time that itsupports children’s emergent literacy and language. The new e-book at-tempted to avoid several of the negative characteristics previously iden-tified in commercial e-books (e.g., distractive multimedia options andgames) while including factors that cogently support literacy (e.g.,highlighting written phrases during declamation of the text, placinggames in a separate mode, introducing activities that support the storyline). These unique features included phonological awareness activitiesand a “read with dictionary” mode that automatically provides oralexplanations for difficult words.
In addition to the technical properties of e-books, the current researchalso investigated aspects of pair learning with this medium. Becausekindergarteners generally work on computers in pairs (Lewin, 1998),we were interested in comparing the impact of our e-book within theframework of paired learning (sometimes referred to as peer learning)as compared with individual learning. Various models of learning havebeen constructed to take advantage of the ubiquitous presence of com-puters in the school; peer learning with computers is one of these mod-els. The positive impact of this approach to learning on achievement invarious content areas has already been noted (Baron & Abrami, 1992;Brush, 1996; Mevarech, 1991; Webb, 1984). Peer learning activities as-sume that children acquire knowledge and skills through active learningwith a companion matched in age, education, or status. Within this
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arrangement, students help each other learn and, in doing so, tend to im-prove their own learning (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2000; Topping & Ehly,1998). It has been suggested that peer-learning activities enable stu-dents to improve completion of tasks requiring the sharing of techno-logical resources (De Lisi & Golbeck, 1999), especially in classroomsand preschools with few computers. Alternatively, a computerized en-vironment is particularly suitable for peer learning due to the structurednature of computer-assisted learning, a process that, while generallymanaged by the program, facilitates scaffolding among its studentparticipants (Shamir & Tzuriel, 2004a; Plowman & Stephen, 2003).
Even though the computer has become a familiar part of the pre-school learning environment, research on the impact of computer-assisted learning among this age group is limited (Klein, Nir-Gal, &Darom, 2000; Plowman & Stephen, 2003). Recently, several studieshave focused on how exposure to new technologies positively affectsyoung children (Tzuriel & Shamir, 2002; Luckin, Connolly, Plowman, &Airey, 2003; Ryokia, Vaucelle, & Cassell, 2003) and impacts on emer-gent literacy (Snyder, 2002; Turbill, 2001; Yelland, 1999). Yet, manyquestions remain open regarding the effectiveness of peer as comparedwith individual learning in this context and with this age group. Devel-opment of the innovative e-book provided an opportune moment to con-tinue exploration of these issues as well.
The children who participated in this preliminary study were selectedfrom kindergartens located in low socio-economic status (SES) neigh-borhoods because of their relatively low level of emergent literacywhen compared with children from middle or high SES groups. A re-cent report on children’s literacy achievements has indicated that morethan one-third of the children in the selected countries read and write ata rather basic level, no more than is necessary to meet their very rudi-mentary needs (Douglas, 2000). Most of these low-achieving childrenare from low-income families (Korat, Bachar, & Snapir, 2003). Thisgloomy picture makes it imperative to intensify efforts to search formore effective methods to enhance literacy, especially for more disad-vantaged children. At the same time, due to their low achievements, itwas assumed that changes in literacy levels might be more readilydiscernable among these children.
To summarize, in this study we examined the impact of an educa-tional e-book developed by the authors to support emergent literacyamong low SES kindergarteners within the context of individual learn-ing versus paired learning. Three questions were posed: (a) Do the in-novative e-book activities foster children’s emergent literacy level?
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(b) Which areas of emergent literacy display greater progress as a resultof the children’s e-book activity? (c) Does joint activity in pairs fosterchildren’s emergent literacy at a level equal to that achieved by learningindividually?
METHOD
Participants
The sample consisted of 72 children from 3 kindergartens; 24 chil-dren were randomly assigned to work individually; whereas, 48 chil-dren (24 pairs) were randomly assigned to work in pairs. All threekindergarten classes were located in low SES neighborhoods; in addi-tion, all the classes, employed similar literacy curricula and were underthe authority of the same supervisor. No formal educational program forteaching reading and writing was applied in the classes although all theparticipants had had initial experience with computers in individual andsmall group settings as part of the regular curriculum.
All the children participating were native speakers and did not ex-hibit any learning disabilities. Mean age (in months) was 77.68 (SD =5.41). Fourteen boys (58.3%) and 10 girls (41.7%) worked individually;thirty-three boys (68.8 %) and 15 girls (31.3%) worked in pairs.
A brief introduction to the curriculum will help familiarize us withthe educational environment. Kindergarteners are usually five to sixyears old. Formal instruction in reading and writing begins upon entryto school at the age of six or seven. As part of the standard curriculum,kindergarten students are read to from storybooks and encouraged tovoluntarily browse through books. Most kindergarten classes have oneor two computers, with children trained to use different software, in-cluding e-books. Children are taught to recognize their written namesand to individually write them on their artwork. They also participate ingames promoting phonemic awareness, with time devoted to recitationof the alphabet or to letter naming (Shatil, Share, & Levin, 2001).
The Innovative E-Book
We chose to develop an e-book based on a hardcopy book for youngchildren. This 25-page book contains large colorful drawings that covermore than half of each page, and three to five written sentences (a totalof about 40 words) per page. The text is printed in a standard font.
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The book relates the story of an old farmer (Uncle Aaron) and hisspecial relationship with an old tractor. The story allows readers to ac-company Uncle Aaron on his adventures and exposes them to the touch-ing relationship between the old man and his tractor. We chose thisbook because of the story’s structure and simple narrative elements: set-ting, characters, goal/initiating event, problem, and solution/ending(Mandler & Johnson, 1977). In addition, we established that the book’swritten register–lexicon (word frequency), syntax, and grammaticalcomplexity–was appropriate for kindergarteners. Another factor con-sidered was the book’s potential to arouse young children’s reading mo-tivation and curiosity; the story problem, presented via the charactersand their actions, appears germane to young children’s experiences. Indeveloping the educational e-book, we integrated features that use elec-tronic and e-interactive media having the potential to motivate and amusechildren on the one hand, and those that we believed would support chil-dren’s emergent literacy and language on the other. A pilot study con-ducted with 10 low SES children whose teacher had read them thehardcover story indicated that the majority (eight children) understoodthe story’s plot quite well.
Main Functions
The introductory screen of the innovative educational e-book looksjust like the cover of the hardcopy book, with the title and author’s nameappearing as they would in print. The different options for activating thestory are explained by an animated representation of Uncle Aaron. Chil-dren are offered four modes or options: “read only,” “read with a dictio-nary,” “read and play,” and “print.” It is important to note that allactivities offered in the “read and play” mode are presented only afterthe children have completed reading the text on each page. The 24 pagesof the e-book were scanned from the printed book to retain as much ofthe original hardcopy text as possible.
Each mode contains an oral reading of the printed text by an actor.Also included are automatic dynamic visuals that dramatize story de-tails, fragments, and the complete story scene; extra music and filmeffects transform the e-book into a “living” book. For example, whenUncle Aaron invites the children to join him for a trip to the fields on thetractor’s wagon, children see the enthusiasm and hear the joyful voicesof the story children climbing onto the tractor. The music creates a joy-ous atmosphere while the vivid objects and characters appearing on thecolorful screen help children become cognitively involved in the events.
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To stimulate an orientation toward reading and involvement in theact, the e-book includes forward and backward buttons (colorful ar-rows) on each screen that allow children to return to previous screens orcontinue onto the next one. Children can also use a function that allowsthem to reread/relisten to the text by clicking an arrow that repeats thedesired segment. The children’s attention is focused on the relationshipbetween text and oral reading by highlighting written phrases as the textis uttered by the actor, a function aimed at supporting exposure to writ-ten language and word recognition (de Jong & Bus, 2002). In addition,an overview screen is available to show all optional screens (each screenis numbered) in reduced format. This enables children to choose thescreen they would like to reread/rehear. These functions are meant tostrongly support a pro-book orientation in addition to concepts of printand emergent reading knowledge, all of which have been reported asimportant for children during early literacy development (Clay, 1989;Levin, Share, & Shatil, 1996; Shatil, Share, & Levin, 2001; Tunmer,Nesdale, & Wright, 1987).
Description of the Main Modes
The “read only” mode contains an oral reading of the printed text bythe actor together with automatic dynamic visuals that dramatize storyscenes; music and film effects are added. The “read with dictionary”mode provides an oral reading of the text as well as explanations for dif-ficult words; it appears automatically after the narrator completes read-ing the entire page. Each difficult word appears written in a large cloudthat appears automatically on the screen; it is clearly pronounced by thenarrator and associated with pictures that support its meaning. Childrencan later reactivate this function by clicking on the words as often asthey choose. We provided this automatic dictionary based on the assump-tion that this function, which resembles the explanations adults providewhen reading a story to a child, would facilitate children’s understandingof the text.
The words were chosen in two stages. The first involved a pilot read-ing (eight children) of the text conducted to identify the more difficultwords. The twelve words finally placed in the dictionary option wereselected after determination of their difficulty level for kindergartenersby three judges: two kindergarten teachers and one expert in children’sliterature. It is important to note that this function was missing in mostof the available commercial e-books evaluated in the studies reportedherein (Korat & Shamir, 2004b; de Jong & Bus, 2002).
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The “read and play” mode was aimed at enhancing children’s storyunderstanding and phonological awareness. It includes interactive func-tions that allow children to activate the story by clicking on hiddenhotspots (represented by a colored kite) as they appear on (a) charactersor objects and (b) on words that appear in the text. As noted earlier, toprevent the children from being distracted from the listening or readingtasks, this function was programmed so that hotspots could be activatedonly after listening to/reading the text on the specific page.
All activation of characters or objects in this CD-ROM storybook wasaimed to enrich story comprehension, primarily by maintaining a dis-course between the main characters and by including voices and soundseffects. For instance, when the narrator reads the text on page 3, followingthe previous scene in which the children are exposed to different activitiesperformed in tandem by Uncle Aaron and the tractor, a voice says: “Un-cle Aaron and the tractor worked together.” When children click on ahotspot of the figure of Uncle Aaron, an expansion of the text is presentedvia the following comment made by the character: “The tractor and I arenot just ordinary friends, we are friends in body and soul.”
Hotspots of words were designed to elaborate children’s phonologi-cal awareness of syllable levels. A large flower then appears with theword divided into syllables while the actor reads the word aloud. Tenwords from the book’s text were chosen for this syllable activity. Theyare all common words constructed of two syllables. For example, gadol(“big”) is divided into two syllables: ga-dol.
Children’s Emergent Literacy Level
Children’s emergent literacy level was assessed using several mea-sures before and after the activity with the e-book.
Word Meaning. Children were asked for the meaning of the 12 wordsthat appeared in the dictionary mode in the electronic book. Each wordwas orally presented to the children together with three optional meanings.The children were asked to choose the best meaning. For example, chil-dren were asked: “What is the meaning of the word ‘container’ (inHebrew meixal)? (a) Is it a big truck? (b) Is it a big bottle? or (c) Is it amail box?” The children were given two examples in which the re-searchers provided the answer before they were tested. The total scorefor this task ranged from 0 to 12. Cronbach-alpha reliability coefficientsfor this measure was .63.
Word Recognition: Words from the E-Book. The children were askedto read 9 words, each of which appears with high frequency (4 to 7
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times) in the e-book they have read in the study’s framework. For eachword, scores ranged from 0 to 2; (2 = “Correct reading of the word,” 1 =“Partial reading, pronouncing at least one sound correctly,” 0 = “Read-ing another word or saying ‘I don’t know’”). Thus, the entire range ofscores for this task was 0 to 18. Across two raters, the inter-rater reli-ability, using Cohen’s Kappa, was .80 (Alpha score = .92).
Emergent Writing: Words from the E-Book. Children were asked towrite the same nine words that they had been asked to read in the wordrecognition task, one at a time. The writing task followed the readingtask. Each written word was scored from low to high on a six-point scaleadapted from Levin et al. (1996), as follows: (a) pseudo letters only,(b) random letters only, (c) random and phonetic writing, (d) phoneticwriting only, (e) phonetic and conventional writing, and (f) conven-tional writing only. The overall range of scores for the entire task for 9words was from 0 to 54. Across two raters, the inter-rater reliability forthis measure, using Cohen’s Kappa, was .78 (Alpha score = .97).
Phonological Awareness. Phonological awareness was measured us-ing the 12 two-syllable words placed in the dictionary. The words wereorally presented to the children one at a time; the children were thenasked to say each word in two parts, representing the two syllables (e.g.,the word gadol [“big”] should be divided into ga-dol). The researcherpracticed two examples with the children before testing. Each correctlyrepeated word received a score of 1; incorrect answers were scored 0.Thus, the total range of scores for the 12 words was 0 to 12. Across tworaters, the inter-rater reliability for this measure, using Cohen’s Kappa,was .85 (Alpha score = .87).
Letter Naming. Children were presented with the 10 regular (notfinal) letters of the alphabet in their native language, each written on aseparate card. Letters were randomly chosen, one at a time, from a box.The children were asked for the name of the letter. Correct names orcorrect sounds received a score of 1 for each of the 10 letters. Thus, thetotal range of scores was 0 to 10. Cronbach-alpha reliability coefficientsfor this measure was .87.
Procedure
The Pre-Intervention Stage. Children’s emergent literacy level priorto the e-book activity was assessed. Because the participants were veryyoung, we conducted the tests in two sessions, no more than five daysapart. In the first session, the children were tested with the “word meaning”and “word recognition” measures; in the second session, the children
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were tested with the “emergent word writing,” “letters naming,” and“phonological awareness” measures. The order of the tests in the sessionswas the same for all children. No more than three weeks elapsed betweenthe assessment of the first and the last child among the participants.
Joint Activity with the E-Book. Each of the 24 pairs of children andthe 24 children working individually participated in three e-book activ-ity sessions and experienced the three e-book modes (each mode once):first, “read only,” then “read with dictionary” and finally “read andplay.” We chose three different e-book activities to avoid a decline ininterest in the story’s content, a concern based on observations madeduring the pilot study. The children worked on each session for about30 minutes. After being shown how the software operates, the partici-pants were given the following general instructions: “We’ve broughtyou an e-book that you can work and play with on the computer. You’reinvited to work with it. After you finish working with the computer,we’ll ask you some questions about the story. That’s why we not onlywant you to look carefully at the pictures, but at the text as well.” Thechildren who worked in pairs were given the following additional in-structions: “Play with the e-book in the same way as you usually playtogether with friends; we suggest that you take turns using the mouse.”
The Post-Intervention Stage. Following the three-session e-book read-ing activity, the children’s emergent literacy levels were assessed usingthe same emergent literacy tasks administered in the pre-interventionphase. The order of the tasks remained the same.
RESULTS
Preliminary analyses of the pre-intervention emergent literacy scoresshowed no significant differences between the scores of children inthe two groups (working individually vs. working in pairs): F(5, 66) =2.19, p = ns. To determine the effect of working with the educationale-book specifically developed to promote children’s emergent literacyachievements, we used a repeated measures MANOVA of group bytime (2 × 2), with time used as a repeated measures variable. The find-ings showed a significant main effect for time: F (5, 66) = 5.40, p < .001.As expected, the children’s post-intervention scores (M = 49.70, SD =17.37) were higher than their pre-intervention scores (M = 45.00, SD =16.38) across both groups and across all measures of emergent literacy.However, there was no significant interaction effect for group by time
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F (5,66) = 0.98, p = ns, indicating no difference in the pre- to post-intervention improvement in emergent literacy scores between studentswho worked individually and students who worked in pairs.
Separate univariate analyses revealed a significant time effect onthree of the five subtests of emergent literacy: Emergent Writing (F[1,70] = 9.95, p < .001), Phonological Awareness (F[1,70] = 6.84, p < .01),and Word Recognition (F[1, 70] = 8.40, p < .001) (see Table 1).
A repeated-measure MANOVA of gender by time (2 × 2), with timeemployed as a repeated measures variable, showed no interaction be-tween gender and time (F[5,66] = 0.372, p = ns), indicating no significantdifference in the pre- to post-intervention improvement in emergent liter-acy scores between girls and boys.
DISCUSSION
In the current preliminary study we investigated the effectiveness ofan innovative educational electronic book developed by the authors tosupport kindergarteners’ emergent literacy. Three questions were posed:
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TABLE 1. Means, Standard Deviations, Results of Univariate Analyses andEffect Sizes (ES): Pre- and Post-Intervention Emergent Literacy Scores ofKindergarteners Across Individual and Paired Learning Groups (N = 72)
Emergent LiteracyVariables
Pre-InterventionScores
Post-InterventionScores
F a ES
Emergent writing(Possible range 0-54)
M 21.76 25.14 9.95*** 0.26SD 12.60 12.98
Letter naming(Possible range 0-10)
M 7.56 7.51 0.00 0.01SD 3.01 2.87
Phonological awareness(Possible range 0-12)
M 11.20 11.63 6.84** 0.25SD 1.94 1.61
Word meaning(Possible range 0-12)
M 3.58 4.05 2.50 0.20SD 2.12 2.44
Word recognition(Possible range 0-18)
M 0.88 1.37 8.40*** 0.20SD 2.14 2.62
adf = 1,70.**p � 0.01; ***p � .001.ES = Effect sizes were calculated as differences between means as a proportion of the standard deviation.
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(a) Do the innovative e-book activities foster the children’s emergentliteracy level? (b) Which areas of emergent literacy display greaterprogress as a result of the children’s e-book activity? (c) Does a joint ac-tivity in pairs foster children’s emergent literacy at a level equal to thatachieved by learning individually?
Given the pre- to post-structure of the research, the comparison oftwo learning environments (individual and paired) as well as the intro-duction of activities absent from other e-books, we take this structure torepresent a type of control that supports our conclusions, enumerated inthe following, regarding the educational efficacy of the new e-book.
Regarding the first question, the findings show clear improvementin the children’s overall emergent literacy levels between the pre- andpost-intervention stages. This improvement appeared in both types oflearning setups–children who worked individually and those who workedin pairs. These findings indicate that experiencing our educationale-book, which was specifically designed for fostering young children’sliteracy development, was clearly effective despite the limited number ofinteractions (three sessions) with the book. Our findings are in line with theresults obtained by Chera and Wood (2003) and McKenna, Reinking, andBradley (2001), which show that working with a well-designed e-book isbeneficial for young children’s literacy development. We should repeathere that the findings regarding the efficacy of commercial e-books areinconsistent.
With respect to the second question, children’s knowledge improvedin three of the five emergent literacy areas–word recognition, emergentwriting, and phonological awareness–as a result of interacting with theinnovative e-book. These three areas have been found to be crucial atschool entry (Nicholson, 1999; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001) andessential for predicting reading and writing success at school (Korat,Bachar, & Snapir 2003; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001). The uniquenessof the e-book developed by the authors for this study also rested on theincorporation of a story rereading/relistening feature in addition to elab-orations of emergent word reading, word meaning, and phonologicalawareness. This was accomplished, we venture, by the e-book allowingfor emergent literacy learning to occur in the more meaningful contextof story reading than by the drill and practice typically found in muchsoftware for young children (Reinking, 1997). In addition, all the multi-media additions were carefully designed to avoid the distractions too of-ten appearing in many other CD-ROM story books (Korat & Shamir,2004b; DeJong & Bus, 2002).
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We can also assume that the pre- to post-intervention improvementsin children’s emergent word writing and word recognition in particularresulted from reading the highlighted text during the e-book activity.The highlighting enabled children to closely follow the written words(they changed in color from black to red) that appeared on the screenwhile they were being read aloud by the narrator. We suggest that thisprocess might have influenced the children’s focus on the entire word inconjunction with its individual features and parts. It is important to notethat the 9 words that the children were asked to read and write beforeand after the intervention appeared in the story e-book to which the chil-dren were exposed with moderately high frequency (4 to 7 times) duringeach of the three intervention sessions. For example, the word Aaron(the name of the main character) appeared 9 times in the text; as a result,the child was exposed to the word a total of 27 times over the total ofthree sessions.
One can also conclude that the improvement in children’s phonologi-cal awareness from pre- to post-intervention was due to their activity inthe read and play mode, which included interactive operations of hots-pots designed for phonological awareness. The 12 words that appearedin this mode had two syllables, a structure that frequently appears in thechildren’s native language. It is possible that when the children acti-vated the hotspots with phonological operations they could more easilyinternalize the phonological structure (syllable level) of the word be-cause they were simultaneously listening and viewing the word beingpresented orally.
We should note here that a high correlation has been reported be-tween the three parameters of emergent literacy on which the childrenshowed significant pre- to post-intervention improvement–emergentwriting, emergent reading, and phonological awareness (Aram & Levin,2001; Korat, Bachar, & Snapir, 2003). Thus, we can assume thatimprovement in any one of the three can bring about an improvement inthe other two. This assumption should be further examined in future re-search. As it stands, enhancement of low SES children’s skills in theseareas is an important mission for educators and researchers becausethese children are considered at risk regarding schooling, especiallywith respect to reading and writing. This essential knowledge can be ad-vanced via many different educational activities, including high qualitysoftware, such as the educational CD-ROM storybook we developedfor this study.
No significant improvement occurred following the intervention intwo areas of emergent literacy: word meaning and letter naming. Two
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possible explanations can be given for these results. First, it is possiblethat the limited number of exposures to the word meaning mode (twice)was insufficient for the children to internalize the meaning of the newword. It is important to note that the first exposure to the meaning of thenew words was given automatically as part of the reading/listening ac-tivity. Further exploration of the words’ meanings depended on thechild’s initiative. We recommend that future researchers closely ob-serve the manner in which children use the dictionary mode and how itaffects the acquisition of word meaning. The second explanation relatesto the fact that many of the words given in the word meaning modeare less frequently found in everyday use and relate specifically tofarming–an area with which city-bred children are less likely to be fa-miliar. Nevertheless, the lack of improvement in letter naming appearsreasonable because the software was not designed to address this skilldirectly. As such, this finding can be treated as a type of control: Im-provement tended to occur more in those areas that the software wasspecifically designed to enhance (such as phonological awareness);others showed no or little improvement.
Our third question referred to whether paired activity fosters chil-dren’s emergent literacy at a level equal to that achieved by individuallearning. The findings showed no differences between the children’slearning achievements in the five areas measured-word meaning, emergentreading, emergent writing, letter names, and phonological awareness– as afunction of the different contexts. Our findings support previous researchfindings indicating that training for peer-assisted learning is important forqualitative learning processes (Tzuriel & Shamir, 2002; Topping & Ehly,1998). Alternatively, although working in pairs was spontaneous, the jointactivity with the e-book was not less effective than working individually.In other words, working together with a companion did not interfere withthe children’s acquisition of emergent literacy knowledge. Thus, we mayconclude that working in pairs with educational e-books, as occurs in manykindergarten classes (Lewin, 1998), enhances children’s learning no lessthan does working individually. Given a reality where children need toshare computers due to the lack of a sufficient supply of computers in theclassroom, working in same-age pairs appears to be a practical solution thatdoes not appear to negatively affect their emergent literacy. In light ofthe lack of sufficient research on young children and peer-assisted learn-ing with computers, intensive study of this topic is urgently needed.Relatedly, the benefits of training children for peer learning with comput-ers prior to their engagement in a joint learning activity–especially foremergent literacy–needs to be carefully investigated.
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To conclude, in the current paper we reported on the effectiveness of anovel educational e-book specially designed by the authors to enhancechildren’s emergent literacy. Taking into consideration that in today’sworld children are increasingly exposed to e-books, we recommend thate-book designers place greater emphasis on creating activities designedto support story understanding and early literacy development, firmlyrooted in educational theory and research. The meaningful and favorableeffects of working with this particular educational e-book on children whoworked in pairs or individually demonstrate that joint activity in pairs isnot less effective than working individually, even at this young age.
These findings hold particular implications for the young, low SESpopulation. In light of the evidence suggesting that upon entry intoschool, low SES children already lag behind their higher SES counter-parts on emergent literacy and that the gap continues or grows through-out the school years (Korat, Bachar, & Snapir, 2003; Levin, Share, &Shatil, 1996; Scarborough, 2001; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001), we ad-vocate working with educational e-books as a primary remedial tool.We also recommend reconsideration of e-book design to make properuse of the potential inherent in electronic and interactive media to sup-port children’s emergent literacy and language as well as motivate andamuse them. Such e-books may have the potential to effectively pro-mote higher emergent literacy skills for low SES preschoolers.
Further research is needed that compares the use of the commerciale-books more available to the general population and specialized liter-acy promoting e-books under conditions controlled for various learningenvironments (individual versus paired, low versus high SES environ-ments, home versus school) as well as different comparison groups(e.g., initial versus long-term exposure to e-books). Testing for othermeasures of emergent literacy after exposure to all types of e-books isalso required. Such research will contribute to our understanding theprocess of electronic learning in addition to the preparation of moreappropriate materials.
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