Electronic books: Children's reading and comprehension

Abstract

This study investigates the differences in children's comprehension and enjoyment of storybooks according to the medium of presentation. Two different storybooks were used and 132 children participated. Of these, 51 children read an extract from The Magicians of Caprona, about half reading an electronic version with an online dictionary, and the rest reading a printed version with a separate printed dictionary. The remaining 81 children read an extract from The Little Prince, 26 reading an electronic version, 26 reading the same but with narration and 29 reading a printed version. No dictionary was supplied with this storybook. The type of medium did not significantly affect the children's enjoyment of either storybook, and while it took them longer to read the electronic versions, this difference was only significant for The Little Prince. For both storybooks, comprehension scores were higher for retrieval-type questions than for inference ones. The use of the online dictionary in the electronic condition of The Magicians of Caprona was significantly greater than that for the printed dictionary in that condition. The provision of narration in the electronic version of The Little Prince led to significantly higher comprehension scores than when narration was absent. © 2006 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2006 British Educational Communications and Technology Agency.