Direct and Indirect Teaching :Using E-books for supporting vocabulary,

Word Reading, and Story Comprehension for Young Children

OFRA KORATADINA SHAMIRBar-Ilan University

J. EDUCATIONAL COMPUTING RESEARCH, Vol. 46(2) 135-152, 2012

Presenter: 林盈慧 NA1C0007

Introduction• Language and reading enrichment have been the goal of numerous educational

programs for years, especially for children from disadvantaged communities and low socioeconomic statuses (LSES).

• Investigated whether the e-book we developed enables efficient learning of word meaning and reading among young children before formal reading and writing at school.

• The aim of the current study was to examine the effect of the CD-ROM storybook format that offers a computerized dictionary in enriching

the vocabulary, word reading, and story comprehension of preschool children.

Literature Review

• A good vocabulary level may support children’s word decoding, which in turn sustains reading comprehension (Carlisle & Rice, 2002).

• It is also well-acknowledged that large differences exist between young children in their vocabulary volume, and that this affects their future literacy and academic progress (Hart & Risley, 1995; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).

Literature ReviewVocabulary learning and teaching• The more the student reads, the more vocabulary terms are acquired from the context (Stanovich, 1986)

• Vocabulary knowledge is a key factor in oral communication and in overall accomplishment in school (Vermeer, 2001), especially in reading and reading comprehension (Nagy & Scott 2000; Stanovich, 1986).

• Jenkins, Stein and Wysocki (1984) found that children must be exposed to a word in the context at least six times before they are able to learn its meaning.

Literature Review• According to Swanborn and de Gloppers’ findings (1999), the ability to learn words from context depends on the learners’ ability, their grade level, and the text density.

•New forms of literacy and narrative have emerged, including electronic storybooks on CDs, on the web, the iPad, the Nook, and the Kindle, which enrich the traditional printed form (Peterson, Booth, & Jupiter, 2009; Unsworth, 2006).

• A new body of research, showing the efficacy of this software on children’s language and literacy, has therefore emerged in the past decade (e.g., Bus, de Jong, &Verhallen, 2006; Chera & Wood, 2003; Korat & Shamir, 2008).

Literature Review• 94 Israeli middle and low SES families, it was found that 95% had computers in their homes and all of these homes had at least five softwares for young children, including e-books (Landua, 2005).

•The work in small groups of two children was conducted according to results of studies that showed that learning in small groups plays a major role in promoting young children’s literacy (Karweit & Wasik, 1996; Lauren & Allen, 1999), including studies which focused on e-books Korat & Shamir, 2008).

Research Question

1. Will the direct support condition of the focal words in the digital dictionary improve the children’s word meaning and reading to a greater extent than the indirect condition?

2. Will kindergarten children progress more than pre-k children in word meaning and reading, and will they present a higher level of story comprehension?

3. To what extent will the children’s age group and the digital support of each condition contribute to their story comprehension?

MethodSchools background•Located in low SES neighborhoods•Formal reading and writing instruction in Israel begins in school, at the age of 6 to 7.

Participants (have initial experience with computers individually)•288 Israeli children from 12 classes (pre-kindergarten ＆ kindergarten classes) 18 to 26 children randomly from each class intervention group : 72 (read the e-book five times) control group : 72 (the regular school program)

MaterialE-book• an electronic version of the printed book Yuval Hamebulbal (Confused Yuval) by

Roth (2000)• The story’s structure and simple narrative elements—setting, characters,

goal/initiating event, problem, and solution/ending

• A large colored drawing covering more than half of the page appears on each of the book’s 15 pages, as do 3 to 5 written sentences totaling about 40 words.

• Three modes or options for the story in the electronic version 1. Read story only 2. Read story with dictionary (offer explanations of difficult words that

appear automatically on the screen ) (see Figure 1)

3. Read story and play

Figure 1. Read story with dictionary mode

“Yuval, get up, its time, get dressed quicklyand go to kindergarten!"Yuval yawns, he is still tired,He collects his clothes very slowlyStraightens …Stretches …Stretches an arm and a legAnd suddenly remembers: he is already STRETCHING”

ProcedureWork two at a time in a separate room

Activity with the computer (read story with dictionary)

Take turns in sharing the mouse

Give the technical support as needed and encourage to go on and finish their session(lasted about 20-25 minutes each).

After finishing, participants answer questions

Research Tools• Children’s Measures• Vocabulary 10 words appeared in the dictionary 6 appeared in the text without explanation The alpha score for this measure was .67.• Word reading Cohen’s Kappa, was .82 The alpha score for this task was .90.• Story comprehension The alpha score for this task was .70.

Results• Pre-intervention overall literacy scores 2-way MANOVA of 2 (age group; pre-kindergarten vs. kindergarten) × 2 (type group; intervention vs. e-control) The dependent variables: children’s scores in word meaning and word reading.Significant differences age groups (F(4, 281) = 33.69, p < .001, 2 = .32).

No differences between experiment and control (F(4, 281) = .35, n.s., 2 = .01) No interaction between age group and group type (F(4, 281) = .08, n.s., 2 = .00)

Results• Story comprehension was tested for the pre-kindergarten and

kindergarten children following the intervention.

• The kindergarten children’s score (M = 12.00, SD = 2.36) was significantly higher than that of the pre-kindergarten children (M = 10.07, SD = 2.67; t(143) = –4.61, p < .001).

Discussion•E-books have a good potential for supporting children’s word meaning when implemented in a computerized dictionary.

• pre-school children aged 4 to 6 succeeded in word reading of frequent words (4-7 times in a book) that appeared in an e-book after five repeated readings (Korat, 2009).

• The experimental group who experienced e-book reading progressed significantly more than the children from the control group who did not read the e-book.

Discussion• Reading a digital story with highlighted text is a different context in which young children might pay attention to the text and advance their reading skills.

• the importance of direct word meaning teaching and more specifically to the advantage of incorporating a dictionary in e-books.

• children’s ability to progress in word reading is related to their ability to better comprehend the story.

Limitation

• a pictorial presentation of the focal word, an oral explanation as well as the printed word that appears on the screen cannot enables the children to learn the meaning of the word and can only claim that it is due to a combination of these three modalities.

• more details on children’s background, such as their specific computer use, including e-book reading and especially their vocabulary and word reading level.

Limitation

• Whether the context of the children working in pairs served as a significant variable in their progress compared to working individually.

• How well e-books can support children’s language and literacy depends on their quality and on how well they were designed to specifically meet children’s needs.

Thanks for your listening!!

Presenter: 林盈慧 NA1C0007