The Benefits of Reading Digital Storybooks with Animations Among Low-Income Preschoolers

• In Event: Relevance of Individual and Family Environment Factors for Young Children’s Language Use and Language Skills

Abstract

Recent developments in digital storybooks enable to provide multimedia enhancements of animated illustrations, with a promise to support early literacy and language of at-risk children. Previous findings showed that multimedia animations relevant to story content can support reading outcomes (Authors, 2020), while animations that are incongruent or irrelevant to a story can impair outcomes (Bus et al., 2015). But not all story-relevant animation features may support comprehension.

The current study attempted to investigate experimentally the extent to which low-income preschoolers’ story comprehension differs for digital storybooks with storyline-element animations (reinforcing storyline progression), illustration-details animations (drawing children’s attention to specific elements in the illustrations, not storyline progression), and no additional animations.

Participants were 86 preschool children from nine classrooms in eight urban Head Start sites (mean age = 62.06 months, SD = 3.38). The sample was diverse, with 46.5% dual-language learners.

Two digital storybooks, Cinderella: A Nosy Crow Fairy Tale (Nosy Crow Limited, 2016) and Where Do Balloons Go? (Auryn, Inc., 2013), were used for this study. Cinderella was selected as a more difficult storybook, with a higher Lexile, a longer MLU and more words, and Balloon as less difficult. These two were adapted into three versions: (1) animations focused on storyline elements, (2) animations focused on illustration details or (3) no additional animations. Children were randomly assigned to the conditions. Children’s initial vocabulary was assessed with WJ III Picture Vocabulary. After digital reading, story comprehension was assessed.

A multi-level regression analysis was conducted with Mplus (Version 8: Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2017) to examine animation conditions of storyline animations and no additional animations. The illustration-detail condition was used as a reference group.

For the more difficult storybook (Cinderella), regression analysis showed no significant differences in comprehension between children who saw storyline-element versus illustration-detail animations. In contrast, children who saw no additional animations had significantly higher comprehension than children seeing illustration details, β = .277, p = .003. (Table 1 Model 1).

Further analysis showed that storyline-element animations led to higher comprehension of Cinderella than illustration-detail animations, β = .199, p = .003, only for high-vocabulary children (Table 1 Model 2; also see Figure 1). Children with relatively low vocabulary showed stronger comprehension when they read Cinderella with no additional animations, β = -.194, p = .009. (Table 1 Model 3).

For the less difficult storybook (Balloons), regression results demonstrated that storyline-element animations had a facilitative effect: children who saw animations focused on storyline elements had significantly higher comprehension than those who saw animations focused on illustration details, β = .332, p = .001.

Using digital storybooks with animations on illustration details hindered comprehension of low-income preschoolers. For a less difficult story, animations focused on storyline-elements improved comprehension. In a more difficult story, animations focused on storyline-elements enhanced comprehension only for children with high vocabulary skills.

We will discuss implications on how to design digital storybooks and how to select good digital storybooks for at-risk children.

Author

• Claire Seung-Hee Son, University of Utah