The effects of e-stories on preschoolers’ narrative comprehension,retelling and reading attitudes among poor and good comprehenders

Abstract

Previous studies have presented discrepant findings of e-stories’ contribution to children’s narrative comprehension, which can be attributed to not only the variation of multimedia features among studies but also to learner and text features. The main goal of the present study was to expand understanding of the effect of e-stories on children’s narrative skills and reading attitudes for poor and good story comprehenders. A quasi-experimental factorial design was employed to explore the effect of book type and group level on children’s narrative skills and reading attitudes. The participating children were pre-readers. The printed version of The Red Winged Owl was read aloud to small groups of 4–5 children. Participants included 41 good and 40 poor comprehenders (age range 59–68 months) who were identified based on narrative comprehension scores. The experimental group was exposed to four e-stories on an iPad, while the control group listened to readings of the printed versions of the same storybooks. Data were collected by administering pre- and post-tests and the preschool reading attitudes scale and by asking narrative comprehension questions. Children’s retellings were audio-recorded. The findings revealed that (a) the poor and good comprehender groups had higher narrative comprehension in the short text e-story condition, (b) there was a significant interaction effect for the narrative comprehension of poor and good comprehenders in longer texts and (c) children’s post-reading attitude scores did not differ by group level.

Keywords

Electronic stories preschoolers reading attitude retelling story comprehension

Introduction

Storybook reading is an activity that children in the early years of life find mesmerizing; it is also a significant indicator of the home literacy environment (Marjanovič-Umek et al., 2019; Wirth et al., 2020). Shared storybook reading is a substantively important vehicle for children, as it exposes them to new words and story grammar elements and develops print awareness in the content of the narratives (Breit-Smith, et al., 2017; De Temple and Snow, 2003; Han and Neuharth-Pritchett, 2015). Stories provide meaningful context for children to rehearse skills such as monitoring a plot, inferential thinking, listening comprehension and retelling (Collins, 2016; Florit et al., 2011; Morrow, 1985; Strasser and del Río, 2013). Moreover, early shared book-reading experiences spark positive reading attitudes in children (Altun et al., 2021 Altun, 2013; Lee and Yeo, 2014; Saracho and Dayton, 1991).

Meta-analyses have consistently reported on the contribution of storybook reading to children’s language and literacy skills (Bus et al., 1995; Mol and Bus, 2011; Mol et al., 2008; National Early Literacy Panel, 2008; Scarborough and Dobrich, 1994). Mol and Bus (2011) showed that storybook reading also has a long-lasting cumulative effect on oral language development from preschool (12%) to the undergraduate and graduate years (34%). They concluded that storybook reading is moderately related to academic achievement. These findings clearly indicate that although pre-reader children are dependent readers of stories, they are active listeners, viewers and learners during the shared reading process (Beaty and Pratt, 2003).

Both the quantity and quality aspects of children’s storybook-reading experiences have been well documented and have served as key topics for researchers (Hindman et al., 2014; Hutton et al., 2017; Isbell et al., 2004; Sénéchal et al., 2008; Zevenbergen Whitehurst, 2003). Nevertheless, storybook reading remains a valuable research topic because of the influence of rapid changes in information and communication technologies (ICTs) on storybook features and children’s storybook experiences. With the advent of new technologies, today’s young children’s early literacy experiences have also been altered, compared to earlier generations, and they are exposed to both digital and printed literacy environments (Kucirkova, 2016). A growing number of digital storybooks and applications have also become available for young children (Danaei et al., 2020; Smeets and Bus, 2012). Studies have shown that a growing number of young children are engaging with both electronic and printed stories (Flewitt et al., 2015; Marsh et al., 2017; Neumann et al., 2017). Printed storybooks have static illustrations with text, while digital stories include multimedia features (e.g. animation and sound) that can enrich the story’s plot and allow a child to listen to the story with or without an adult’s participation (Merjovaara et al., 2020; O’Byrne et al., 2018). Therefore, the effect of electronic stories on children’s learning is one of the hottest research topics in education.

Electronic storybooks

Electronic storybooks (e-storybooks or e-stories) are a kind of hypermedia narrative that combines text and multimedia enhancements to enable children to listen to and read stories independently or with adults (Takacs et al., 2015). Advances in ICTs have markedly changed digital literacy environments (Leu et al., 2013) and led to an evolving selection of multimedia-saturated, child-sized, light and easily portable new e-storybooks. E-storybooks offer extra-textual properties – sound, music, animated pictures and interactive features – that elaborate more on the strategy to execute story-to-story tracking and require the processing of different forms of information in story comprehension (Altun, 2021). Leu et al. (2004) analysed the proliferation of forms and functions of new literacies in the digital age and asserted that children’s literacy experiences should extend beyond printed storybooks. Similarly, the International Reading Association (2009) recommended the effective integration of ICTs in literacy practices to produce fully literate individuals in today’s world.

Numerous studies have addressed the efficacy of e-storybooks in building young children’s language and literacy skills (e.g. Chera and Wood, 2003; Ihmeideh, 2014; Korat, 2009; Lauricella et al., 2014; Okolo and Hayes, 1996; Shamir and Korat, 2007; Takacs and Bus, 2016). Although this research is in its early phases, a consensus has emerged concerning the contribution of e-storybook reading to children’s (a) vocabulary (Ihmeideh, 2014; Kocaman-Karoglu, 2015; Korat, 2010; Korat et al., 2014; Korat and Shamir, 2012; Segers and Verhoeven, 2002; Shamir et al., 2011, Shamir et al., 2012; Shamir et al., 2011; Shamir et al., 2012; Smeets and Bus, 2012; Takacs et al., 2015; Verhallen and Bus, 2010), (b) phonological awareness (Chera and Wood, 2003; Ihmeideh, 2014; Shamir, 2009; Shamir et al., 2012) and (c) print awareness (Ihmeideh, 2014; Moody, 2010; Segal-Drori et al., 2010; Shamir et al., 2008).

A meta-analysis (Takacs et al., 2015) found that e-storybooks had a small but significant effect on children’s story comprehension; however, other studies have presented mixed findings. Despite substantial evidence that e-storybook reading benefits children’s story comprehension (Altun 2018; De Jong and Bus, 2004; Doty et al., 2001; Matthew, 1997; Verhallen et al., 2006; Zucker et al., 2009), some studies found that printed storybooks are superior to e-storybooks (Krcmar and Cingel, 2014; Parish-Morris et al., 2013), and others found no difference between book types (Lauricella et al., 2014; Moody et al., 2010; Richter and Courage, 2017). These discrepant findings of e-stories’ contribution to story comprehension can be interpreted through a theoretical lens.

Theoretical underpinnings

The possible efficacy of the multimedia features of technology-mediated e-stories on story comprehension are addressed in dual coding theory (DCT; Paivio, 1986), the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML; Mayer, 2003) and Neuman (2005) theory of synergy (Neuman, 2005). DCT proposes that the human mind processes information through an interdependent and interconnected dual channel consisting of nonverbal (imagens) and verbal (logogens) elements (Paivio, 1986). The multimodal structure of e-stories navigates the processing of verbal and nonverbal information simultaneously, and this dual processing can facilitate narrative comprehension (Sadoski and Paivio, 2001). Bus et al. (2015) suggested that dynamic visuals in digital books may support efforts to concretize the oral text since a single static illustration (e.g. an action like jumping or many little fish forming the shape of a big fish) in printed books can be displayed in five to eight scenes in digital storybook versions (Altun 2018; Takacs and Bus (2016)). Thus, animation provides more visual details, which may foster contiguity between illustrations and oral texts. Children simultaneously process the dual information types – narration and animation – which may facilitate their narrative comprehension.

In a similar vein, CTML assumes three qualities about the nature of learning: dual information processing, a limited capacity for information processing and active learning (Mayer, 2003). Multimedia learning takes place when information is presented via more than one modality; the multimodal format bolsters the transfer of referential connections between verbal and nonverbal representations to construct knowledge (Mayer and Sims, 1994). However, Neuman (2005) theory of synergy suggests that each medium (sound, music and animation) has specific features and the combination of the media is greater than the sum of the parts. The synergy among the media forms may represent a new dimension for the processing of information that helps children to construct meaning from the story.

In this context, studies have shown that animations, sounds and music are commonly assistive (Altun, 2018; Doty et al., 2001; Korat, 2010; Korat and Shamir, 2012; Verhallen et al., 2006), whereas interactive features, such as hotspots and games, can be detrimental when these are intense or incongruous with the text (Bus et al., 2015; De Jong and Bus, 2002; Korat and Shamir, 2007; Moody et al., 2010; Takacs et al., 2015; Zucker et al., 2009). The studies that have examined e-storybooks using a variety of multimedia features and heterogeneous formats provide evidence of mixed effects on children’s story comprehension (Bus et al., 2015; Takacs et al., 2015; Zucker et al., 2009). However, these discrepant findings might be due to more than the variations among multimedia features; learners’ characteristics may also play a role. For instance, studies found that the contribution that e-stories made to children’s language outcomes varied depending on their socioeconomic status (De Jong and Bus, 2002; Korat and Shamir, 2008) and language and learning impairment (Shamir et al., 2011; Smeets et al., 2014; Takacs et al., 2015). In particular, these variations may be related to the children’s cognitive capabilities. For example, cognitive load theory focuses on the limited capacity of the working memory in information processing (Sweller, 1994). Similarly, the capacity model (Fisch, 2000) noted the significance of children’s working memory capacity in media exposition. The difficulties that children face when exposed to e-stories may be related to the heavy informational complexity of these texts; tracking multimedia features and story plot simultaneously may interfere with narrative comprehension because the effort creates an excessive cognitive load. Narrative comprehension is a complex cognitive process that includes monitoring the story’s plot, identifying characters, inference-making, constructing meaning from text and/or pictures and summarizing (Collins, 2016; Paris et al., 1991; Paris and Paris, 2003). Attention, working memory (Andreassen and Braten, 2010; Hannon, 2012; Strasser and del Río, 2013), executive functions (Strasser and del Río, 2013), inferential skills (Collins, 2016; Florit et al., 2011) and verbal intelligence (Florit et al., 2009; Florit et al., 2011) all contribute to narrative comprehension.

Narrative comprehension

The simple view of reading model (SVM; Gough and Tunmer, 1986; Hoover and Gough, 1990) and the unitary process reading model (UPRM; Diakidoy et al., 2005) assert that although reading comprehension involves decoding printed text and listening comprehension involves unravelling visual and aural information, both derive from the same process. This assertion is consistent with research that has found a link between preschoolers’ listening comprehension and reading comprehension in the primary grades (Kendeou et al., 2007; Kendeou et al., 2009; Storch and Whitehurst, 2002). Studies consistently revealed that pre-readers’ narrative comprehension is one of the predictors of later reading comprehension (Kim, 2016; Language et al., 2018; Lervåg et al., 2018). Furthermore, preschoolers’ comprehension processes in non-reading contexts are notably similar to those used in elementary school when reading (Kendeou et al., 2007). Horowitz-Kraus et al., (2013) examined the same children’s brain activation by using fMRI during a narrative comprehension task at age 5–7 and, later, reading comprehension tasks at age 11. They provide neural evidence that reading comprehension is linked with brain activation (occipital) in narrative comprehension. Thus, pre-readers’ narrative comprehension is important and contributes their reading comprehension during the elementary school years (Kendeou et al., 2007).

Previous research on narrative comprehension found that pre-reader children also have varying levels of narrative comprehension (Paris and Paris, 2003; Potocki et al., 2013; Sarı and Altun 2018; Strasser and del Río, 2013). An examination of early narrative comprehenders’ profiles that are similar to school-aged children may help to determine appropriate text, storybook design and learning strategies to promote comprehension skills before they enter elementary school.

One rationale for expecting performance differences in e-story reading between poor and good story comprehender groups lends support to the theory of school-aged children’s e-storybook performance. Okolo and Hayes (1996) showed that for highly engaged second-grade poor readers, spending more time with an animated e-story did not yield greater story comprehension. Their findings indicated that highly animated e-stories may interfere with poor readers’ comprehension. Poor story comprehenders may dedicate a high cognitive effort to unscrambling verbal and visual information within e-stories, thus causing the cognitive load to hinder their story comprehension. They may also have low working memory to monitor and process information. Thus, children’s story comprehension levels may be related to their differential e-story comprehension performance. Lastly, text length, or the amount of verbal information in a story, may also be related to variations in children’s story comprehension. The increase in verbal information may exceed children’s working memory capacity. In sum, learners’ characteristics and multimedia features are important dimensions of e-storybook research. There is a research gap in investigating the effect of e-stories on pre-reader children’s story comprehension levels. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the efficacy of e-stories’ use with poor and good narrative comprehenders.

Text length and narrative comprehension

Text length is an important issue; thus, there are several readability formulas for selecting the appropriate materials for each grade level (Bailin and Grafstein, 2016; Graesser, 2007). Studies have shown that text length can be related to both the cognitive dimension – comprehension by processing information – and the affective dimension – being bored by constraining the process of reading (Meyer, 2003; Oakhill and Cain, 2007). Poor readers are more vulnerable to text length and complexity (Cain and Oakhill, 1996; Francis et al., 2018). Like reading comprehension, narrative comprehension comprises complex cognitive skills such as monitoring the story’s plot, making inferences and extracting meaning from the text (Lynch et al., 2008; Tompkins et al., 2013). Young children actively engage in listening to the story text and construct their own meaning. Thus, the content, complexity and length of the story are crucial factors that influence young children’s narrative comprehension (Skaraki-Doyle and Dempsey, 2008)Studies indicate that text length is a potential factor for working memory and narrative comprehension, however research on e-stories has, to date, ignored the issue. Previous studies used mixed text lengths (ranging from 239 to 1817 words) (e.g. Altun 2018; De Jong and Bus, 2004; Korat and Shamir, 2012; Moody et al., 2010) or present no information regarding the total number of words in each story (Reich et al., 2019; Sarı et al., 2019). In contrast to printed stories, e-stories provide further input, such as sound and dynamic illustrations, together with the story’s text. Therefore, the text length can be a possible factor influencing cognitive load and children’s narrative comprehension in e-stories. Finally, poor comprehenders may be more vulnerable to challenges related to monitoring the story and comprehending them as school-aged poor readers. One of the purposes of this study is to address the gap between text length and e-stories’ comprehension among poor and good comprehenders.

Reading attitude and e-stories

Reading attitude refers to children’s feelings towards engagement in reading-related activities (Saracho, 1988). Young children’s attitudes towards reading are a component of emergent literacy (Whitehurst and Lonigan, 1998). They play role in learning to read, and children typically prefer engaging reading-related activities (McGettigan, 2016; McTaggart, 2003; Snow et al., 1998). Studies have revealed that children’s pleasurable early reading-related experiences associated with their attitudes towards reading (Altun et al., 2021; Lee and Yeo, 2014; Saracho and Dayton, 1991). Recent studies have shown that e-stories can foster children’s attention, engagement and enjoyment in storybook reading (Barnyak and McNelly, 2016; Richter and Courage, 2017; Takacs and Bus, 2016; Yilmaz et al., 2017; Zhou and Yadav, 2017). Thus, e-stories may be potential tools for promoting young children’s positive reading attitudes. The aforementioned studies examined the efficacy of e-stories on children’s engagement and enjoyment, regardless of their narrative comprehension level. Studies with school-aged children have revealed that there is a relationship between reading comprehension and attitude (Kocaarslan, 2016; Widyasari, 2016). Poor readers tend to have less positive reading attitudes than good readers do; thus, children’s narrative comprehension levels may be related to their reading attitudes, and e-stories may affect poor and good narrative comprehenders differently. Poor narrative comprehenders may benefit more from e-stories that grab their attention, and they may enjoy engaging reading activities. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the efficacy of e-stories on children’s reading attitudes regarding poor and good comprehenders.

Hypotheses

These arguments lead to the following hypotheses.

(1) Poor and good comprehenders will recall more from a story’s plot, retell more details and answer more narrative comprehension questions when they encounter short text length e-stories.

(2) E-stories with longer text lengths and embedded with multimedia features may require more simultaneous information processing. This may pave the way for extra cognitive load. In comparison to the good comprehenders, the poor comprehenders may be more vulnerable to processing information challenges and may be distracted from the story’s plot and monitor comprehension. They will recall less from the story’s plot, retell less and answer fewer narrative comprehension questions when encountering e-stories with longer text lengths.

(3) The multimedia features of e-stories may be more effective at attracting children’s attention. Poor comprehenders may need more extra-textual properties to monitor the story; thus, they may be more interested in visual and audio details in e-stories and may engage more in the reading session. E-stories will affect poor comprehenders’ reading attitudes more than they do good comprehenders.

Method

A quasi-experimental 2 × 2 factorial design was employed to explore the effect of book type (e-story vs printed story) and group level (poor vs good) on children’s narrative comprehension, retelling and reading attitudes. A factorial design enables the examination of possible interactions among variables. More than one independent variable is included in the study design to investigate the variables’ unique and combined effects on the dependent variable (Fraenkel et al., 2012).

Participants

After receiving official permission to conduct the study, four preschool headmasters and 14 teachers were informed of the study’s goal and process. The preschool teachers sent parents the informed consent forms; 270 consent forms were delivered, and 219 parents agreed. Twelve children were excluded due to developmental delays, reluctance to participate or attendance problems. The initial pool of the study was 207 children (106 girls and 101 boys), recruited from 14 classes in four public preschools from a large suburban area in Turkey. The mean age was 65.35 months (range 59–68), and all the children were pre-readers. The classroom teachers reported that the participating children were not yet able to read, and none of the children displayed reading ability during the storybook sessions. In Turkey, formal reading instruction begins in first grade. All children were monolingual Turkish speakers and typically developing, based on parent and teacher reports.

The printed version of The Red Winged Owl, by Feridun Oral, was read aloud in small groups (4–5 children). The study aims to investigate the efficacy of e-stories in naturalistic classroom settings. Storybook activities are mostly conducted as whole group or small group activities in preschool classrooms; thus, the intervention sessions were applied using small group naturalistic classroom reading, rather than to each child individually. This particular storybook was chosen for use because, in 2012, the Turkish Association of Children and Youth Publications named it the Best Illustrated Storybook of the Year (see Table 1). The researcher, a faculty member at a state university and a children’s literature lecturer, read the story to the participating children. After the storybook-reading session, the children were asked to retell the story and answered five narrative comprehension questions. The assessment sessions were administered at the preschool outside the classroom, and children participated individually. The children’s responses and oral narratives were audio-recorded.

Table 1.

Storybooks used in the study.

Storybook	Pages	Words	Words/Page
Pre-test	36	428	11.88
Red Winged Owl
Intervention
Swimmy	32	239	7.46
Where the Wild Things Are	48	269	5.60
Frederick	40	375	9.37
Who Stole the Moon?	40	541	13.52

The narrative comprehension scores ranged from 3 to 9 (M = 6.47, SD = 1.49). The second coder scored about 22% of the data (45 records) independently. The Pearson product-moment correlation between the raters was 96%. The initial comprehension scores were transformed to z-scores to check for potential outliers, and five cases with standard scores in excess of 3.29 were excluded from the data set (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007). The good story comprehenders selected from the pool scored above the 75th percentile on the initial comprehension scores; poor comprehenders scored below the 25th percentile (Carretti et al., 2005; Kim and Goetz, 1994). Forty-one good (24 girls and 17 boys) and 40 poor (19 girls and 21 boys) comprehenders were identified. From each of the four preschools, 25, 20, 19 and 17 students, respectively, participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 64.70 months. Mothers signed a majority of the consent forms (86%). A majority of parents (61%) held a college degree. The monthly average household income of the participants’ parents was 2873 TRY (low socioeconomic status, ±$755). The distribution of the participants’ socioeconomic status was 51% low, 30% middle and 19% high status. Only two children had prior e-story experience at home.

Instruments

Narrative comprehension

Paris and Paris’s (2003) five prompted story comprehension questions were used to assess the children’s level of narrative comprehension. Explicit questions addressed the main story elements of characters, setting, initiating event, problem and outcome–solution (e.g. ‘Who are the characters in this story?’ and ‘Where does this story happen?’) (Paris and Paris, 2003: 73). The questions were asked to each child under book closed conditions after each storybook session for both the printed and e-story groups. Based on Paris and Paris (2003: 74) rubric, each question was scored from 0 to 2 points. The total story comprehension scores ranged from 0 to 10.

Story retelling

After each book-reading session, children were asked to retell the story on their own. Their retellings were audio-recorded and then transcribed to measure their narrative productivity and lexical diversity in terms of the total number of words (TNW) and number of different words (NDW). Number of different words is commonly used to measure children’s index of productive vocabulary in retellings (Burgoyne et al., 2018; Heilman et al., 2010; Isbell et al., 2004; Ucceli and Paez, 2007). In the present study, not only narrative comprehension but also poor and good comprehenders’ lexical production were investigated to understand the effect of text length on monitoring a story’s oral text for electronic and printed conditions.

Reading attitude

The Preschool Reading Attitude Scale (PRAS) was used to measure children’s attitudes towards reading. Saracho (1988) developed the pictorial scale for assessing pre-readers’ reading attitudes, and Altun (2013) translated it into Turkish for 414 preschoolers. The scale consisted of 12 questions, to which children responded by selecting one of three faces (very unhappy, neither very happy nor unhappy, or very happy), which were scored from 1 to 3. The scale covers questions to gauge children’s feelings about reading and reading-related activities. The total reading scores ranged from 12 to 36 points. The reliability of PRAS was computed 0.95 using a test–retest method and 0.89 using the Kuder–Richardson 20 test.

Materials

Four storybooks were selected based on the appropriateness of both their plots and illustrations for young children. The stories Swimmy, by Leo Lionni; Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak; Frederick, by Leo Lionni; and Who Stole the Moon? by Helen Stratton-Would are well known and Caldecott Medal award-winning children’s picture books. Swimmy and Where the Wild Things Are were the shorter stories used, while Frederick and Who Stole the Moon? were selected as the longer ones. Many studies have investigated young children’s story comprehension by using these picture books (e.g. Altun, 2018; Altun 2021; Klein et al., 2017; Lee, 2017; Lisenbee and Ford, 2018; Tabernero and Calvo, 2020). The e-book of Who Stole the Moon? is commercially available in Turkish; however, Frederick, Where the Wild Things Are and Swimmy were dubbed in Turkish from the available English e-story versions (Altun 2018). Printed editions of the four storybooks are available in Turkish; however, while the storybooks are well known and famous in children’s literature, they are less popular in Turkey. None of the storybooks were available in the classrooms’ book corners. Teachers reported that they had not read these books to the children. In addition, none of the participating children mentioned any familiarity with the stories regarding their characters, plot or illustrations during the storybook sessions. The reading levels of the stories were determined based on previous text classifications and their numbers of words (Allen et al., 1988; Knight, 1994; Wingate, 2002). Previous studies have suggested that books with around 250–300 words can be considered short texts that are easy for young children to comprehend. Both the electronic and printed stories contained the same text and illustrations. Table 1 presents detailed information about the materials.

Although the Who Stole the Moon? e-story had hotspots, neither the researcher nor the children used this feature since a meta-analysis found that hotspots may interfere with children’s story comprehension (Takacs et al., 2015). In addition, multimedia features (pictures, sound and music) were standardized across the e-stories, and all of them were presented to children using an iPad, to hinder extraneous variables among e-book sessions.

Procedure

The study was conducted in three phases (see Table 2). Before the first phase, the researcher collected the completed questionnaires and parental consent forms and made an appointment with each classroom teacher. On the appointed day, the researcher went to the school and introduced herself to the children, using a rabbit puppet in the classroom. After the introduction, the researcher explained the storybook reading activity and asked for the children’s verbal assent to participate. According to the children’s responses, five children were excluded from the study. The participating children were voluntarily involved in the intervention and stated their willingness verbally. The classroom teacher also attended and was witness to the process.

Table 2.

Study procedure.

Phase I Pre-intervention measuresPrinted version of Red Winged Owl was read to determine study groups			Phase II		Phase III
			Interventions and measures
Initial study pool (n = 207)	Experimental group (n = 40)			The experimental group listened to the e-stories
		A. Sub-experimental group – good (n = 20)	Pre-test reading attitude	E-book	e-book Long stories Measurements	Post-test reading attitude
				Short stories
				Measurements
		B. Sub-experimental group – poor (n = 20)	Pre-test reading attitude	E-book	e-book Long stories Measurements	Post-test reading attitude
				Short stories
				Measurements
	Comparison group (n = 41)			The comparison group listened to the same stories in a printed version
		A. Sub-comparison group – good (n = 21)	Pre-test reading attitude	Printed	Printed Long stories Measurements	Post-test reading attitude
				Short stories
				Measurements
		B. Sub-comparison group – poor (n = 20)	Pre-test reading attitude	Printed	Printed Long stories Measurements	Post-test reading attitude
				Short stories
				Measurements

The children were placed into sub-experimental and sub-comparison groups based on their initial story comprehension scores. Before the intervention, the researcher administered the PRAS to the children individually (8–15 min) to assess their initial reading attitudes. Each measurement took place at the school in a spare room equipped with a child-sized table and chairs. Book-reading sessions for all subgroups (4–5 children) took place at the school in a spare room away from noise. In the experimental group, the children listened to e-stories while watching them on the iPad screen. Children in the experimental group gathered around a single iPad. In the comparison group, the children listened to the same printed stories by looking at static illustrations in storybooks. The researcher read the printed books to the comparison groups to eliminate threats to internal validity and to control the readers’ characteristics. The experimental groups watched e-stories under the researcher’s supervision as well. All children were informed briefly about the intervention with the following statement: ‘It’s story time! Please listen to the story carefully. After story time, we will have another activity about the story. I will ask you some questions about the story’. Neither group received any additional support (e.g. by asking questions and talking about the pictures), nor were they exposed to any learning strategies. After each reading, the children were asked to retell the story and to answer story comprehension questions individually. Each child’s retelling and answers were audio-recorded.

Reliability

All reading sessions were video-recorded. The camera was placed behind the children, so their faces do not appear in the records and confidentiality was assured. 10% of the video records were randomly selected to check the fidelity of the experiment (Lombard et al., 2004: O’Connor and Joffe, 2020). A five-point checklist was used to score the videos in terms of environment, the researcher’s directions, reading prosody and consistency of the story-reading duration throughout the interventions. Two trained coders rated the selected videos independently. One of the blinded raters was a graduate student, and the other holds a PhD in early childhood education. The inter-observer reliability coefficient was .91 for treatment fidelity. After each session, children retold the stories and then answered comprehension questions individually. Their retellings and answers were audio-recorded and transcribed for analysis. To assess inter-rater reliability, 25% of the narrative comprehension data were randomly selected (Lombard et al., 2004: O’Connor and Joffe, 2020), and the first and second researchers scored them independently. The Pearson product-moment correlations between the raters were 98% for The Red Winged Owl and Swimmy, 97% for Where the Wild Things Are, 94% for Frederick and 96% for Who Stole the Moon? At the end of the intervention process, the PRAS was used to assess children’s post-reading attitude scores. The intervention and data collection process lasted about 12 weeks.

Results

Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics for sub-study groups in the data set. An independent sample t-test was conducted to compare the subgroups’ initial story comprehension scores. The assumption of a normal distribution and levels of measurement were not violated. There were no significant differences between the comprehension scores of the experimental and comparison groups of either the good (t (39) = 0.17, p > .05) or the poor (t (38) = 1.05, p > .05) comprehender groups. The study findings are presented under each research question sequentially.

Table 3.

Descriptive statistics for the data set.

	E-story				Printed story
	Poor (n = 20)		Good (n = 20)		Poor (n = 20)		Good (n = 21)
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Pre-test
Comprehension	5.05	.80	7.70	.76	5.35	.98	7.73	.66
TNW1	42.65	7.21	75.05	10.00	43.20	8.23	70.26	9.85
NDW1	27.55	3.74	42.75	8.52	29.20	4.46	41.04	6.32
Reading attitude	30.20	1.71	32.42	1.31	31.10	2.82	31.95	2.15
Short Stories
Where the Wild Things Are
Comprehension	5.82	.73	8.10	.60	5.62	.70	7.92	.55
TNW2	58.75	12.30	94.15	11.45	50.75	6.40	89.76	13.25
NDW2	31.20	7.30	48.45	6.03	30.30	5.26	43.42	8.55
Swimmy
Comprehension	6.22	.67	8.25	.52	5.92	.90	8.02	.40
TNW3	65.50	12.27	100.95	12.88	56.40	6.00	96.95	15.10
NDW3	36.70	4.78	54.70	5.58	33.40	4.54	50.66	8.32
Long Stories
Frederick
Comprehension	5.52	.52	8.63	.40	5.77	.76	8.07	.45
TNW4	61.55	12.25	104.70	11.32	59.60	5.05	100.95	16.58
NDW4	35.40	3.58	56.05	4.55	36.80	3.91	52.90	6.91
Who Stole the Moon?
Comprehension	6.02	.54	8.90	.42	6.25	.50	8.19	.37
TNW5	75.25	10.15	139.10	12.59	75.90	7.98	134.71	15.77
NDW5	42.35	3.99	65.80	5.34	43.10	3.78	63.04	6.74
Post-reading attitude	34.60	2.23	34.85	1.76	33.55	1.31	34.00	.98

TNW: total number of words, NDW: number of different words.

Narrative comprehension

A two-way between-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to explore the impact of book type and group levels on children’s total comprehension of short stories (TCSS). The interaction effect was not statistically significant, F (1, 77) = .263, p > .05. Table 4 shows that the main effect for the group level was statistically significant, F (1, 77) = 298.065, p < .05, with a large effect size (η_p² = .79). There was a statistically significant main effect for book type in favour of the e-story, F (1, 77) = 6.143, p < .05, and the effect size was moderate, η_p² = .07. As shown in Figure A1 (see Appendix A), both good and poor comprehension groups had higher story comprehension scores in the digital storybook condition.

Table 4.

Two-way analysis of covariance (ANOVA) results for TCSS and TCLS.

	SS	df	MS	F	p	η_p²
TCSS	—	—	—	—	—	—
Corrected model	386.417^a	3	128.806	101.234	.000	.798
Intercept	15,731.576	1	15,731.576	12,364.128	.000	.994
Book type	7.817	1	7.817	6.143	.015	.074
Group level	379.245	1	379.245	298.065	.000	.795
Book type * group level	.335	1	.335	.263	.610	.003
Error	97.971	77	1.272	—	—	—
Total	16,276.500	81	—	—	—	—
Corrected total	484.389	80	—	—	—	—
TCLS	—	—	—	—	—	—
Corrected model	544.854^a	3	181.618	235.406	.000	.902
Intercept	16,657.414	1	16,657.414	21,590.618	.000	.996
Book type	3.243	1	3.243	4.204	.044	.052
Group level	528.990	1	528.990	685.654	.000	.899
Book type * group level	15.508	1	15.508	20.100	.000	.207
Error	59.406	77	.772	—	—	—
Total	17,324.188	81	—	—	—	—
Corrected total	604.261	80	—	—	—	—

TCSS ^a R ² = .798 (adjusted R² = .790), TCLS R² = .902 (adjusted R² = .898).

TCLS: total comprehension of long stories; TCSS: total comprehension of short stories.

A two-way between-groups ANOVA was conducted to explore the impact of book type and group levels on children’s total comprehension of long stories (TCLS). The interaction effect was statistically significant, F (1, 77) = 20.100, p < .05, and the effect size was large, η_p² = .20. Figure A2 shows that the poor-comprehenders group in the printed storybook condition had higher TCLS, whereas the good comprehenders group achieved higher scores in the e-storybook condition (see Appendix B). Table 4 shows that there were statistically significant main effects for book type, F (1, 77) = 4.204, p < .05, η_p² = .05, and group level F (1, 77) = 685.654, p < .05, η_p² = .90.

Story retelling

A two-way between-groups ANOVA was conducted to explore the impact of book type and group levels on children’s total NDW in short stories (TNDWS). The interaction effect was not statistically significant, F (1, 77) = .787, p > .05. Table 5 shows that the main effect of group level was statistically significant, F (1, 77) = 143.850, p < .05, with a large effect size, η_p² = .65. There was a statistically significant main effect for book type in favour of e-stories, F (1, 77) = 5.865, p < .05, and the effect size was moderate, η_p² = .07. As Figure A3 shows, both good and poor comprehension groups had higher lexical diversity in their retellings in the e-storybook condition (see Appendix C).

Table 5.

Two-way ANOVA results for TNDWS and TNDWL.

	SS	df	MS	F	P	η_p²
TNDWS
Corrected model	22,682.258^a	3	7,560.753	49.877	.000	.660
Intercept	547,210.362	1	547,210.362	3,609.827	.000	.979
Book type	889.027	1	889.027	5.865	.018	.071
Group level	21,806.083	1	21,806.083	143.850	.000	.651
Book type * group level	119.263	1	119.263	.787	.378	.010
Error	11,672.360	77	151.589	—	—	—
Total	583,765.000	81	—	—	—	—
Corrected total	34,354.617	80	—	—	—	—
TNDWL	—		—	—	—	—
Corrected model	32,804.503^a	3	10,934.834	162.386	.000	.864
Intercept	791,333.566	1	791,333.566	11,751.604	.000	.993
Book type	71.069	1	71.069	1.055	.307	.014
Group level	32,509.033	1	32,509.033	482.772	.000	.862
Book type * Group level	327.722	1	327.722	4.867	.030	.059
Error	5,185.052	77	67.338	—	—	—
Total	833,059.000	81	—	—	—	—
Corrected total	37,989.556	80	—	—	—	—

TNDWS ^a R² = .660 (adjusted R² = .652), TNDWL R² = .864 (adjusted R² = .858).

TNDWS; total NDW in short stories; TNDWL: TNDW in long stories.

A two-way between-groups ANOVA was conducted to explore the impact of book type and group levels on children’s TNDW in long stories (TNDWL). The interaction effect was statistically significant, F (1, 77) = 4.86, p < .05, and the effect size was moderate, η_p² = .06. As Figure A4 shows, the poor comprehenders group had higher TNDWL from the printed storybook condition, and the good comprehenders group achieved higher scores from the e-storybook condition (see Appendix D). Table 5 shows that there was no statistically significant main effect for book type, F (1, 77) = 1.05, p >.05, η_p² = .01, whereas the main effect for the group level was statistically significant, F (1, 77) = 482.77, p < .05, η_p² = .86.

Reading attitude

A two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to compare the effectiveness of two different book-reading interventions on children’s reading attitudes. Children’s pre-reading attitude scores were used as the covariate. Preliminary analysis was performed to ensure that there was no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity, homogeneity of variances and homogeneity of regression slopes. After adjusting for pre-intervention scores, there was a significant difference between the post-reading attitudes of the electronic and the printed storybook-reading groups, F (1, 77) = 9.86, p < .05, and the effect size was moderate (η_p² = .11). There was no significant difference between the children’s post-intervention reading attitude scores in terms of group level, F (1, 77) = 3.02, p > .05, and the effect size was small (η_p² = .03). There was a strong relationship between the pre-intervention and post-intervention scores in terms of reading attitude, as indicated by the η_p² value of .51 (see Table 6).

Table 6.

Two-way ANCOVA results for reading attitude.

	SS	df	MS	F	P	η_p²
Corrected model	120.698^a	4	30.174	21.163	.000	.527
Intercept	97.566	1	97.566	68.427	.000	.474
Pre-test reading attitude	99.936	1	99.936	70.089	.000	.513
Book type	14.060	1	14.060	9.861	.002	.115
Group level	4.303	1	4.303	3.018	.086	.038
Book type * group level	1.516	1	1.516	1.063	.306	.014
Error	108.364	76	1.426	—	—	—
Total	95,230.000	81	—	—	—	—
Corrected total	229.062	80	—	—	—	—

^a R² = .527 (adjusted R² = .512).

Discussion

The main goal of this study was to expand knowledge of the effect of e-storybooks on young children’s narrative comprehension, taking into consideration the learners’ characteristics and text length. Previous studies revealed mixed findings concerning the value of e-stories; the present study aimed to determine whether individual differences between poor and good comprehenders contributed to these variations. The study fills a research gap by providing evidence about the effect of matched printed and e-stories of different text lengths on children’s (a) narrative comprehension, (b) retelling and (c) reading attitudes in poor and good story comprehender groups.

Narrative comprehension and retelling

The length of a story was tested at two levels. The findings indicate that multimedia-embedded stories are associated with superior comprehension of short e-stories for poor and good story comprehenders. The study findings support the first hypothesis. These findings are in line with the DCT and CTML views that multimedia components aid in dual information processing and story comprehension (Altun, 2018; De Jong and Bus, 2004; Doty et al., 2001; Takacs et al., 2015). Previous studies (Altun, 2018; Takacs and Bus, 2016) have demonstrated that e-stories provide more lavishly animated illustrations compared to the static pictures in printed storybooks. The abundant illustrations enhance close temporal contiguity between story plot and images (Craig et al., 2002; Johnson and Mayer, 2012; Moreno and Mayer, 1999). The contiguity effect between modalities can provide a meaningful learning environment for young children. Research conducted with school-aged children (Boerma et al., 2016; De Koning and van der Schoot, 2013) offers a rationale for expecting mental imagery skills to relate to narrative comprehension. One plausible explanation is that the animated depictive illustrations and sounds in e-stories may scaffold children’s mental imagery, helping to concretize the story plot and, thus, act as a mental aid that enhances their story comprehension.

One of the most interesting findings of the present study is that there is a significant interaction effect for the narrative comprehension of poor and good comprehender groups in relatively longer texts. These findings confirmed the second hypothesis. Poor comprehenders showed higher story comprehension performance for the longer printed books. The advantage of e-stories, in terms of story comprehension, prevailed for good story comprehenders of both text lengths, but the performance of poor story comprehenders changed based on text length. These findings are preliminary, but this is the first study that shows the differential effects of e-story text length on pre-reader children’s narrative comprehension in poor and good story comprehender groups. From the perspectives of cognitive load (Paas et al., 2003; Sweller, 1994) and the capacity model (Fisch, 2000), the difference between the story comprehension of poor comprehenders for short and long e-storybooks may result from children struggling to assimilate the multimedia features with the story text during story reading. Because this seems to refer to longer e-stories, the continued presence of multimedia features accompanying the narration may distract poor comprehenders and cause them to lose the plot of the story, which is in the line with Okolo and Hayes’s (1996) findings that second-grade poor readers were highly engaged in e-story reading, but showed lower story comprehension. Furthermore, Labbo and Kuhn (2000) found that presenting children with highly interactive stories that include incongruent multimedia features supports passive viewing. After passively viewing an e-story, children gave low cognitive level responses; for instance, they labelled objects or actions, rather than making predictions or commenting on characters, plots and themes.

Our findings suggest the possibility that when children’s attention and working memory have difficulty making connections between text and multimedia features, children experience the text passively. Therefore, it is plausible that the discrepant findings of previous studies may be attributed to the roles of attention, working memory and executive function in story comprehension (Andreassen and Braten, 2010; Hannon, 2012; Strasser and del Río, 2013). Children may use different information-processing strategies while monitoring e-stories and printed stories (Altun 2021; Evans and Saint-Aubin, 2005; Takacs and Bus, 2016). Therefore, further research is needed to clarify the role of working memory and executive function in narrative comprehension for poor and good comprehender groups during e-story exposure with different text lengths.

Regarding story productivity, children’s indicators of lexical diversity in narratives presented findings similar to those related to story comprehension. Although these results were expected, based on the results of previous studies (Altun, 2018; Morrow, 1985; Paris and Paris, 2003; Pearman, 2008), one striking finding is that the interaction effect between text length and group level provides new insights for vocabulary acquisition studies. Previous studies focused on how multimedia-embedded stories scaffold children’s vocabulary acquisition through animated illustrations, dictionaries or interactive questions (Ihmeideh, 2014; Korat, 2010; Korat et al., 2014; Korat and Shamir, 2012; Shamir et al., 2012; Smeets and Bus, 2012; Takacs et al., 2015). These studies focused on extra-textual multimedia features as the medium for children’s new word learning. However, the story itself is another medium that provides context for vocabulary acquisition. Thus, the story’s structure and length may be among the extraneous variables that create discrepancies in research findings. Further studies should explore these relationships in detail.

Reading attitude

In contrast to the third hypothesis, children in both the poor and good comprehender groups who were exposed to the e-stories exhibited significantly more positive attitudes towards reading than those exposed only to printed stories. Similarly, previous studies found that young children are avid listeners/readers of e-stories (Moody et al., 2010; Richter and Courage, 2017; Takacs and Bus, 2016). Another interesting finding is that children’s post-reading attitude scores after the initial adjustment did not differ by story comprehension level. Poor comprehender groups had positive reading attitudes, as did good comprehenders. These findings suggest that the edutainment function of e-stories may spark poor comprehenders’ interest in book reading. In the same vein, Okolo and Hayes (1996) found that second-grade poor readers are highly engaged in e-story reading; however, they demonstrated lower story comprehension. It is possible that the multimedia features of e-stories attract children’s attention and interest, regardless of their narrative comprehension level. At the same time, these findings may be related to the fact that pre-reader children have not been introduced to formal literacy instruction, so they do not face any struggles with reading-related activities and they tend to have positive reading attitudes (Altun et al., 2021). Furthermore, novelty may be related to these results; a majority of the children had no prior e-story reading experience, and the format was unfamiliar to them. Future research should examine the influence of e-stories on children’s reading attitude development in detail.

Limitations

The contributions of this research notwithstanding, the limitations of this study should be noted. First, because of the relatively small available sample of e-stories, the story length was based entirely on word count. Further studies could use different techniques (e.g. T-units) to determine text length. Second, book-reading sessions were performed as a group activity. Previous studies (Altun, 2018; Shamir et al., 2008) have shown that small group e-story reading activities contribute to children’s language and literacy gains, but future studies could compare the effectiveness of e-stories in small groups, or whole-group versus one-to-one sessions. Third, the novelty effects of the e-stories may have influenced the experimental group’s performance. Fourth, all sub-study groups listened to or viewed the stories only once. The repetition of stories (Takacs et al., 2015) may alter the practice effect for story comprehension and reading attitudes in terms of book type and group level. Finally, the present study did not comprise teaching strategies or additional support (asking questions, talking about the pictures, etc.) during the storybook sessions and thus at risk for low ecological validity. Future research should consider the role of teacher–child interactions and scaffolding strategies for use with e-stories and printed stories for poor and good comprehenders.

Conclusion

The varying findings of studies examining the impact of e-stories on young children’s story comprehension is a striking issue that concerns researchers, educators, e-storybook designers and parents. The study revisits existing issues surrounding e-storybook efficacy on story comprehension and adds the new consideration of whether the text length of e-stories has a differential impact on story comprehension for poor and good comprehenders. Learners’ characteristics interact with story comprehension in relatively long e-stories. The discrepant findings regarding the contribution of e-stories to story comprehension can be attributed not only to the variation of multimedia features between studies but also to learner and text features. Several findings of this study have important pragmatic implications for developing and selecting well-designed e-stories to optimize children’s learning by matching learner and e-story characteristics.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Dilek Altun

Appendix

References

Allen

ED.

Bernhardt

Berry

, et al. (1988) Comprehension and text genre: an analysis of secondary school foreign language readers. The Modern Language Journal 72(2): 163–172.

Altun

(2013) An investigation of the relationship between preschoolers’ reading attitudes and home literacy environment. (Master's Thesis). Available from National Council of Higher Education Thesis Center, Ankara, Turkey. (No: 345481).

Altun

(2018) The efficacy of multimedia stories in preschoolers’ explicit and implicit story comprehension. Early Childhood Education Journal 46(6): 629–642.

Altun

(2021) Twice upon a mind: preschoolers’ narrative processing of electronic and printed stories. Early Childhood Education Journal 49(2): 349–359.

Altun

Erden

Hartman

(2021) Preliterate young children’s reading attitudes: connections to the home literacy environment and maternal factors. Early Childhood Education Journal: 1–12. DOI: 10.1007/s10643-021-01177-2.

Andreassen

Braten

(2010) Examining the prediction of reading comprehension on different multiple-choice tests. Journal of Research in Reading 33(3): 263–283. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01413.x.

Bailin

Grafstein

(2016) Readability: Text and Content. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Barnyak

McNelly

(2016) The literacy skills and motivation to read of children enrolled in Title I: a comparison of electronic and print nonfiction books. Early Childhood Education Journal 44(5): 527–536.

Beaty

Pratt

(2003) Early Literacy in Preschool and Kindergarten. Ohio: Merrill Prencite Hall.

10.

Boerma

Mol

Jolles

(2016) Reading pictures for story comprehension requires mental imagery skills. Frontiers in Psychology 7: 1630. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01630.

11.

Breit‐Smith

van Kleeck

Prendeville

, et al. (2017) Preschool children’s exposure to story grammar elements during parent–child book reading. Journal of Research in Reading 40(4): 345–364.

12.

Burgoyne

Gardner

Whiteley

, et al. (2018) Evaluation of a parent-delivered early language enrichment programme: evidence from a randomised controlled trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 59(5): 545–555.

13.

Bus

Takacs

Kegel

CAT

(2015) Affordances and limitations of electronic storybooks for young children’s emergent literacy. Developmental Review 35: 79–97.

14.

Bus

van IJzendoorn

Pellegrini

(1995) Joint book reading makes for success in learning to read: a meta-analysis on intergenerational transmission of literacy. Review of Educational Research 65: 1–21. DOI: 10.3102/00346543065001001.

15.

Cain

Oakhill

(1996) Reading comprehension difficulties: correlates, causes, and consequences. In: Cain

Oakhill

(eds)Children’s comprehension problems in oral and written language: A cognitive perspective. New York: The Guilford Press, 41–75.

16.

Carretti

Cornoldi

De Beni

, et al. (2005) Updating in working memory: a comparison of good and poor comprehenders. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 91(1): 45–66.

17.

Chera

Wood

(2003) Animated multimedia ‘talking books’ can promote phonological awareness in children beginning to read. Learning and Instruction 13: 33–52.

18.

Collins

(2016) Supporting Inferential Thinking in Preschoolers: Effects of Discussion on Children's Story Comprehension. Early Education and Development 27(7): 932–956.

19.

Craig

Gholson

Driscoll

(2002) Animated pedagogical agents in multimedia educational environments: effects of agent properties, picture features and redundancy. Journal of Educational Psychology 94(2): 428–434.

20.

Danaei

Jamali

Mansourian

, et al. (2020) Comparing reading comprehension between children reading augmented reality and print storybooks. Computers & Education 153: 103900. DOI: 10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103900

21.

de Jong

Bus

(2002) Quality of book-reading matters for emergent readers: an experiment with the same book in a regular or electronic format. Journal of Educational Psychology 94: 145–155.

22.

Jong

Bus

(2004) The efficacy of electronic books in fostering kindergarten children’s emergent story understanding. Reading Research Quarterly 39(4): 378–393.

23.

De Koning

van der Schoot

(2013) Becoming part of the story! Refueling the interest in visualization strategies for reading comprehension. Educational Psychology Review 25(2): 261–287.

24.

De Temple

Snow

(2003) Learning words from books. In: van Kleeck

Sthal

Bauer

(eds) On reading books to children. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 16–36.

25.

Diakidoy

I-AN

Stylianou

Karefillidou

, et al. (2005) The relationship between listening and reading comprehension of different types of text at increasing grade levels. Reading Psychology 26(1): 55–80.

26.

Doty

Popplewell

Byers

(2001) Interactive CD-ROM storybooks and young readers’ reading comprehension. Journal of Research on Computing in Education 33: 374–384.

27.

Evans

Saint-Aubin

(2005) What children are looking at during shared storybook reading: evidence from eye movement monitoring. Psychological Science 16(11): 913–920.

28.

Fisch

(2000) A capacity model of children’s comprehension of educational content on television. Media Psychology 2(1): 63–91.

29.

Flewitt

Messer

Kucirkova

(2015) New directions for early literacy in a digital age: the iPad. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 15(3): 289–310.

30.

Florit

Roch

Altoè

, et al. (2009) Listening comprehension in preschoolers: the role of memory. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 27(4): 935–951.

31.

Florit

Roch

Levorato

(2011) Listening text comprehension of explicit and implicit information in preschoolers: the role of verbal and inferential skills. Discourse Processes 48(2): 119–138.

32.

Fraenkel

Wallen

Hyun

(2012) How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education. New York: McGraw-Hill.

33.

Francis

Kulesz

Benoit

(2018) Extending the simple view of reading to account for variation within readers and across texts: the complete view of reading (CVRi). Remedial and Special Education 39(5): 274–288.

34.

Graesser

(2007) An introduction to strategic reading comprehension. In: McNamara

(ed) Reading Comprehension strategies: Theories, Interventions, and Technologies. Mahwah: Erlbaum, 3–26.

35.

Gough

Tunmer

(1986) Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education 7: 6–10.

36.

Han

Neuharth-Pritchett

(2015) Meaning-related and print-related interactions between preschoolers and parents during shared book reading and their associations with emergent literacy skills. Journal of Research in Childhood Education 29(4): 528–550.

37.

Hannon

(2012) Understanding the Relative Contributions of Lower-Level Word Processes, Higher-Level Processes, and Working Memory to Reading Comprehension Performance in Proficient Adult Readers. Reading Research Quarterly 47(2): 125–152.

38.

Heilmann

Miller

Nockerts

, et al. (2010) Properties of the narrative scoring scheme using narrative retells in young school-age children. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 19: 154–166.

39.

Hindman

Skibbe

Foster

(2014) Exploring the variety of parental talk during shared book reading and its contributions to preschool language and literacy: evidence from the early childhood longitudinal study-birth cohort. Reading and Writing 27(2): 287–313.

40.

Hoover

Gough

(1990) The simple view of reading. Reading and Writing 2: 127–160.

41.

Horowitz-Kraus

Vannest

Holland

(2013) Overlapping neural circuitry for narrative comprehension and proficient reading in children and adolescents. Neuropsychologia 51(13): 2651–2662.

42.

Hutton

Phelan

Horowitz-Kraus

, et al. (2017) Shared reading quality and brain activation during story listening in preschool-age children. The Journal of Pediatrics 191: 204–211.

43.

Ihmeideh

(2014) The effect of electronic books on enhancing emergent literacy skills of pre-school children. Computers & Education 79: 40–48.

44.

International Reading Association (2009) New literacies and 21st-century technologies: a position statement of the International Reading Association. Retrieved from https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/new-literacies-21st-century-position-statement.pdf?sfvrsn=ec4ea18e_6. 3 March 2017.

45.

Isbell

Sobol

Lindauer

, et al. (2004) The effects of storytelling and story reading on the oral language complexity and story comprehension of young children. Early Childhood Education Journal 32(3): 157–163.

46.

Johnson

Mayer

(2012) An eye movement analysis of the spatial contiguity effect in multimedia learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 18(2): 178–191.

47.

Kendeou

Van Den Broek

White

, et al. (2007) Comprehension in preschool and early elementary children: skill development and strategy interventions. In: McNamara

(ed) Reading Comprehension Strategies: Theories, Interventions, and Technologies. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 27–45.

48.

Kendeou

Van den Broek

White

, et al. (2009) Predicting reading comprehension in early elementary school: the independent contributions of oral language and decoding skills. Journal of Educational Psychology 101(4): 765–778.

49.

Kim

Y-SG

(2016) Direct and mediated effects of language and cognitive skills on comprehension of oral narrative texts (listening comprehension) for children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 141: 101–120.

50.

Kim

Goetz

(1994) Context effects on word recognition and reading comprehension of poor and good readers: a test of the interactive-compensatory hypothesis. Reading Research Quarterly 29(2): 179–188.

51.

Klein

Armstrong

Gordon

, et al. (2017) Expanding Receptive and Expressive Skills through Stories (EXPRESS). San Diego: Plural Publishing.

52.

Knight

(1994) Dictionary use while reading: he effects on comprehension and vocabulary acquisition for students of different verbal abilities. The Medico-legal Journal 78(3): 285–299.

53.

Kocaarslan

(2016) An exploratory study of the relationships between reading comprehension competence, reading attitude and the vividness of mental imagery among Turkish fourth-grade students. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education 8(4): 675–686.

54.

Kocaman-Karoglu

(2015) Telling stories digitally: an experiment with preschool children. Educational Media International 52(4): 340–352. DOI: 10.1080/09523987.2015.1100391.

55.

Korat

(2009) The effects of CD-ROM storybook reading on Israeli children’s early literacy as a function of age group and repeated reading. Education and Information Technologies 14(1): 39–53.

56.

Korat

(2010) Reading electronic books as a support for vocabulary, story comprehension and word reading in kindergarten and first grade. Computers & Education 55(1): 24–31.

57.

Korat

Shamir

(2007) Electronic books versus adult readers: effects on children’s emergent literacy as a function of social class. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 23(3): 248–259.

58.

Korat

Shamir

(2008) The educational electronic book as a tool for supporting children’s emergent literacy in low versus middle SES groups. Computers & Education 50(1): 110–124.

59.

Korat

Shamir

(2012) Direct and indirect teaching: Using e-books for supporting vocabulary, word reading, and story comprehension for young children. Journal of Educational Computing Research 46(2): 135–152.

60.

Korat

Levin

Atishkin

, et al. (2014) E-book as facilitator of vocabulary acquisition: support of adults, dynamic dictionary and static dictionary. Reading and Writing 27(4): 613–629.

61.

Krcmar

Cingel

(2014) Parent-child joint reading in traditional and electronic formats. Media Psychology 17(3): 262–281.

62.

Kucirkova

(2016) Personalisation: a theoretical possibility to reinvigorate children’s interest in storybook reading and facilitate greater book diversity. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 17(3): 304–316.

63.

Labbo

Kuhn

(2000) Weaving chains of affect and cognition: a young child’s understanding of CD-ROM talking books. Journal of Literacy Research 32(2): 187–210.

64.

LanguageReading Research Consortium Chiu

(2018) The simple view of reading across development: Prediction of grade 3 reading comprehension from prekindergarten skills. Remedial and Special Education 39(5): 289–303.

65.

Lauricella

Barr

Calvert

(2014) Parent-child interactions during traditional and computer storybook reading for children’s comprehension: implications for electronic storybook design. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 2(1): 17–25.

66.

Lee

(2017) Learning vocabulary through e-book reading of young children with various reading abilities. Reading and Writing 30(7): 1595–1616.

67.

Lee

Yeo

(2014) Influence of home literacy environment on children reading attitude. Journal of Education and Practice 5(8): 119–138.

68.

Lervåg

Hulme

Melby‐Lervåg

(2018) Unpicking the developmental relationship between oral language skills and reading comprehension: it’s simple, but complex. Child Development 89(5): 1821–1838.

69.

Leu

Kinzer

Coiro

, et al. (2004) Toward a theory of new literacies emerging from the Internet and other information and communication technologies. In: Alverman

Unrau

Ruddell

(eds) Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. 5th edition. Newark: International Reading Association, 1570–1613.

70.

Leu

Kinzer

Coiro

, et al. (2013) New literacies: a dual-level theory of the changing nature of literacy, instruction, and assessment. In: Alverman

Unrau

Ruddell

(eds) Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. 6th edition. Newark: International Reading Association, pp. 1150–1181.

71.

Lisenbee

Ford

(2018) Engaging students in traditional and digital storytelling to make connections between pedagogy and children’s experiences. Early Childhood Education Journal 46(1): 129–139.

72.

Lombard

Snyder-Duch

Bracken

(2004) Practical resources for assessing and reporting intercoder reliability in content analysis research projects. Retrieved from: http://www.temple.edu/sct/mmc/realibility. 25 Aug 2017.

73.

Lynch

Van Den Broek

Kremer

, et al. (2008) The development of narrative comprehension and its relation to other early reading skills. Reading Psychology 29(4): 327–365.

74.

Marjanovič-Umek

Hacin

Fekonja

(2019) The quality of mother–child shared reading: its relations to child’s storytelling and home literacy environment. Early Child Development and Care 189(7): 1135–1146.

75.

Marsh

Hannon

Lewis

, et al. (2017) Young children’s initiation into family literacy practices in the digital age. Journal of Early Childhood Research 15(1): 47–60.

76.

Matthew

(1997) A comparison of the influence of interactive CD-ROM storybooks and traditional print storybooks on reading comprehension. Journal of Research on Computing in Education 29(3): 263–275.

77.

Mayer

(2003) The promise of multimedia learning: using the same instructional design methods across different media. Learning and Instruction 13: 125–139.

78.

Mayer

Sims

(1994) For whom is a picture worth a thousand words? Extensions of a dual-coding theory of multimedia learning. Journal of Educational Psychology 86(3): 389–401.

79.

McGettigan

(2016) Emergent Literacy Intervention in First Grade Struggling Readers. New Jersey: Unpublished Master Thesis, Rowan University.

80.

McTaggart

(2003) The role of children’s interest and home literacy environment in the development of early literacy skills. (Unpublished Master’s Thesis), The University of Guelph, Canada.

81.

Merjovaara

Nousiainen

Turja

, et al. (2020) Digital stories with children: examining digital storytelling as a pedagogical process in ECEC. Journal of Early Childhood Education Research 9(1): 99–123.

82.

Meyer

BJF

(2003) Text coherence and readability. Topics in Language Disorders 23(3): 204–224.

83.

Mol

Bus

(2011) To read or not to read: a meta-analysis of print exposure from infancy to early adulthood. Psychological Bulletin 137(2): 267–296.

84.

Mol

Bus

de Jong

, et al. (2008) Added value of dialogic parent-child book readings: a meta-analysis. Early Education and Development 19(1): 7–26.

85.

Moody

(2010) Using electronic books in the classroom to enhance emergent literacy skills in young children. Journal of Literacy and Technology 11(4): 22–52.

86.

Moody

Justice

Cabell

(2010) Electronic versus traditional storybooks: relative influence on preschool children’s engagement and communication. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 10(3): 294–313.

87.

Moreno

Mayer

(1999) Cognitive principles of multimedia learning: the role of modality and contiguity. Journal of Educational Psychology 91(2): 358–368.

88.

Morrow

(1985) Retelling stories: a strategy for improving young children’s comprehension, concept of story structure, and oral language complexity. The Elementary School Journal 85(5): 647–661.

89.

National Early Literacy Panel (2008) Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington: National Institute for Literacy. Retrieved from: https://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/NELPReport09.pdf.

90.

Neuman

(2005) Television as a learning environment: a theory of synergy. In: Flood

Brice Heath

Lapp

(eds) Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy Through the Communicative and Visual Arts. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 15–30.

91.

Neumann

Finger

Neumann

(2017) A conceptual framework for emergent digital literacy. Early Childhood Education Journal 45(4): 471–479.

92.

Oakhill

Cain

(2007) Issues of causality in children’s reading comprehension. In: McNamara

D. S.

(ed) Reading Comprehension Strategies: Theories, Interventions, and Technologies. Mahwah: Erlbaum, 47–71.

93.

O’Byrne

Houser

Stone

, et al. (2018) Digital storytelling in early childhood: student illustrations shaping social interactions. Frontiers in Psychology 9. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02749.

94.

O’Connor

Joffe

(2020) Intercoder reliability in qualitative research: debates and practical guidelines. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 19. DOI: 10.1177/1609406919899220.

95.

Okolo

Hayes

(1996) The impact of animation in CD-ROM books on students’ reading behaviors and comprehension. Paper presented at the Annual International Convention of the Council for Exceptional Children 74th, Orlando, FL, April 1-5, 1996. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED395434.pdf (accessed 14 September 2018).

96.

Paas

Renkl

Sweller

(2003) Cognitive load theory and instructional design: recent developments. Educational Psychologist 38(1): 1–4.

97.

Paivio

(1986) Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach. New York: Oxford University Press.

98.

Paris

SG.

(2003) Assessing narrative comprehension in young children. Reading Research Quarterly 38(1): 36–76.

99.

Paris

Wasik

Turner

(1991) The development of strategic readers. In: Barr

Kamil

Mosenthal

, et al. (eds) Handbook of Reading Research. New York: Longman, 609–640.

100.

Parish-Morris

Mahajan

Hirsh-Pasek

, et al. (2013). Once upon a time: Parent–child dialogue and storybook reading in the elecgtronic era. Mind, Brain, and Education 7(3), 200–211.

101.

Pearman

(2008) Independent reading of CD-ROM storybooks: measuring comprehension with oral retellings. The Reading Teacher 61(8): 594–602.

102.

Potocki

Ecalle

Magnan

(2013) Narrative comprehension skills in 5-year-old children: correlational analysis and comprehender profiles. The Journal of Educational Research 106(1): 14–26.

103.

Reich

Yau

, et al. (2019) Digital or print? A comparison of preschoolers’ comprehension, vocabulary, and engagement from a print book and an e-book. AERA Open 5(3): 1–16. DOI: 10.1177/2332858419878389.

104.

Richter

Courage

(2017) Comparing electronic and paper storybooks for preschoolers: attention, engagement, and recall. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 48: 92–102.

105.

Sadoski

Paivio

(2001) Imagery and Text: A Dual Coding Theory of Reading and Writing. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.

106.

Saracho

Dayton

(1991) Age-related changes in reading attitudes of young children: a cross-cultural study. Journal of Research in Reading 14(1): 33–45.

107.

Saracho

(1988) Preschool reading attitude scale. Early Child Development and Care 37(1): 93–108.

108.

Sari

Altun

(2018) Okul öncesi dönem çocuklarının hikâye anlama ile zihin kuramı becerileri arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesi. Ana Dili Eğitimi Dergisi 6(4): 945–960.

109.

Sarı

Başal

Takacs

, et al. (2019) A randomized controlled trial to test efficacy of digital enhancements of storybooks in support of narrative comprehension and word learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 179: 212–226.

110.

Scarborough

Dobrich

(1994) On the efficacy of reading to preschoolers. Developmental Review 14: 245–302.

111.

Segal-Drori

Korat

Shamir

, et al. (2010) Reading electronic and printed books with and without adult instruction: effects on emergent reading. Reading and Writing 23(8): 913–930.

112.

Segers

Verhoeven

(2002) Multimedia support of early literacy learning. Computers & Education 39(3): 207–221.

113.

Sénéchal

Pagan

Lever

, et al. (2008) Relations among the frequency of shared reading and 4-year-old children’s vocabulary, morphological and syntax comprehension, and narrative skills. Early Education and Development 19(1): 27–44.

114.

Shamir

(2009) Processes and outcomes of joint activity with e‐books for promoting kindergarteners’ emergent literacy. Educational Media International 46(1): 81–96.

115.

Shamir

Korat

(2007) Developing an Educational E-Book for Fostering Kindergarten Children's Emergent Literacy. Computers in the Schools 24: 125–143.

116.

Shamir

Korat

Barbi

(2008) The effects of CD-ROM storybook reading on low SES kindergarteners’ emergent literacy as a function of learning context. Computers & Education 51(1): 354–367.

117.

Shamir

Korat

Fellah

(2012) Promoting vocabulary, phonological awareness and concept about print among children at risk for learning disability: can e-books help? Reading and Writing 25(1): 45–69.

118.

Shamir

Korat

Shlafer

(2011) The effect of activity with e-book on vocabulary and story comprehension: a comparison between kindergarteners at risk of learning disabilities and typically developing kindergarteners. European Journal of Special Needs Education 26(3): 311–322.

119.

Skarakis-Doyle

Dempsey

(2008) Assessing story comprehension in preschool children. Topics in Language Disorders 28(2): 131–148.

120.

Smeets

DJH

Bus

(2012) Interactive electronic storybooks for kindergartners to promote vocabulary growth. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 112(1): 36–55.

121.

Smeets

DJH

Van Dijken

Bus

(2014) Using electronic storybooks to support word learning in children with severe language impairments. Journal of Learning Disabilities 47(5): 435–449.

122.

Snow

Burns

Griffin

(1998) Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Washington: National Academies Press.

123.

Storch

Whitehurst

(2002) Oral language and code-related precursors to reading: evidence from a longitudinal structural model. Developmental Psychology 38(6): 934–947.

124.

Strasser

del Río

(2013) The role of comprehension monitoring, theory of mind, and vocabulary depth in predicting story comprehension and recall of kindergarten children. Reading Research Quarterly 49(2): 169–187.

125.

Sweller

(1994) Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design. Learning and Instruction 4(4): 295–312.

126.

Tabachnick

Fidell

(2007) Using Multivariate Statistics. Boston: Pearson.

127.

Tabernero

Calvo

(2020) Children with autism and picture books: extending the reading experiences of autistic learners of primary age. Literacy 54(1): 11–17.

128.

Takacs

Bus

(2016) Benefits of motion in animated storybooks for children’s visual attention and story comprehension. an eye-tracking study. Frontiers in Psychology 7: 1591. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01591.

129.

Takacs

Swart

Bus

(2015) Benefits and pitfalls of multimedia and interactive features in technology-enhanced storybooks. Review of Educational Research 85(4): 698–739.

130.

Tompkins

Guo

Justice

(2013) Inference generation, story comprehension, and language skills in the preschool years. Reading and Writing 26(3): 403–429.

131.

Uccelli

Páez

(2007). Narrative and vocabulary development of bilingual children from kindergarten to first grade: developmental changes and associations among English and Spanish skills. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 38: 225–236.

132.

Verhallen

MJAJ

Bus

de Jong

(2006) The promise of multimedia stories for kindergarten children at risk. Journal of Educational Psychology 98(2): 410–419.

133.

Verhallen

MJAJ

Bus

(2010) Low-income immigrant pupils learning vocabulary through digital picture storybooks. Journal of Educational Psychology 102(1): 54–61.

134.

Whitehurst

Lonigan

(1998) Child development and emergent literacy. Child Development 69(3): 848–872.

135.

Widyasari

(2016) The correlation among reading attitude, interpersonal intellegence and reading comprehension. Arab World English Journal 7(2): 288–298.

136.

Wingate

(2002) The Effectiveness of Different Learner Dictionaries: An Investigation into the Use of Dictionaries for Reading Comprehension by Intermediate Learners of German. Tübingen. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG Vol. 16(2).

137.

Wirth

Ehmig

Drescher

, et al. (2020) Facets of the early home literacy environment and children's linguistic and socioemotional competencies. Early Education and Development 31(6): 892–909.

138.

Yilmaz

Kucuk

Goktas

(2017) Are augmented reality picture books magic or real for preschool children aged five to six? British Journal of Educational Technology 48(3): 824–841.

139.

Zevenbergen

Whitehurst

(2003) Dialogic reading: a shared picture book reading intervention for preschoolers. In: Van Kleek

Stahl

Bauer

(eds) On Reading Books to Children: Parents and Teachers. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 77–200.

140.

Zhou

Yadav

(2017) Effects of multimedia story reading and questioning on preschoolers’ vocabulary learning, story comprehension and reading engagement. Educational Technology Research and Development 65(6): 1523–1545.

141.

Zucker

Moody

McKenna

(2009) The effects of electronic books on pre-kindergarten-to-grade 5 students’ literacy and language outcomes: a research synthesis. Journal of Educational Computing Research 40(1): 47–87.

142.

Lionni

(2013) Yüzyüz [Swimmy]. Ankara: Elma Yayınları.

143.

Oral

(2008) Kırmızı Elma [The Red Apple]. Ankara: Yapı Kredi Yayınları.

144.

Oral

(2017) Kırmızı Kanatlı Baykuş [Red Winged Owl]. Ankara: Yapı Kredi Yayınları.

145.

Sendak

(2016) Vahşi şeyler ülkesinde [Where the wild things are]. İstanbul: Can Sanat Yayınları.

146.

Would

(2016) Ay’ı Kim Çaldı? [Who Stole the Moon]. Ankara: Yapı Kredi Yayınları.