Poster #236 - Children's Story Comprehension from Book Reading over Video Chat

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

Reading storybooks with young children is a powerful activity for promoting language development and preparing children for school learning (Bus et al., 1995). Yet not all children are read to in a regular enough way or using effective interactive reading techniques. Given the recent rise in technology use in families (Common Sense Media, 2017), we explore whether children can comprehend storybooks read over video chat. This could capitalize on video chat technology to give preschoolers additional language and reading exposure through remote shared book reading even when an adult in the immediate environment is not available.
In preliminary data, 4-year-olds (N = 13) were randomly assigned to read a storybook with an experimenter either over video chat or live. In both conditions, the session administrator introduced the child and the reader to each other (either live or via video chat). The reader then engaged in a brief introductory conversation with the child, including asking the child questions (e.g., “What’s your favorite color?”) and responding appropriately (e.g., I like blue too!”). Then, the reader read a narrative picture book to the child. The reader used dialogic reading prompts, asking children questions about the story and relating the story to children’s lives. These prompts were scripted to be consistent across all children. After the prescribed prompts, the reader interacted with children responsively and naturally. Importantly, across both of these conditions, the child only saw the reader during the reading session.
After the reading session, children's comprehension was assessed via a page-by-page retell procedure and forced-choice comprehension questions. In the page-by-page retell task, the session administrator showed children images of the book’s pages with the text removed and asked children to retell what happened on each page. Responses were coded by counting how many of a predetermined set of possible elements children recalled from the story.
Children were asked five multiple-choice comprehension questions about the content of the story with two response options, such as "How did the beaver get better at saying “I’m sorry? A) He read a book about it. B) He practiced in the mirror. Children who were unsure or reluctant to provide an answer were told to give their best guess.
Results showed similar levels of comprehension between the conditions, with any difference favoring video chat. Children in the live condition retold 18.3 elements from the story, whereas children in the video chat condition retold 24.8 elements from the story, d = 0.86, p = .17 (See Figure 1). Children in both groups answered 63% of the questions correctly (See Figure 2). Data from a non-interactive video condition are being collected currently.
These findings, indicating that children benefit from interacting with a remote reader over video chat, suggest that video chat reading may be a practical and even wise alternative to live reading. These findings open up a new and promising possibility for innovative programs aimed at increasing low-income children’s early literacy skills. The next question is whether volunteer readers can be trained to provide effective dialogic reading.

Authors

• Yemimah King, Purdue University
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca Dore, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hannah Puttre, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lindsey Foster, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Univ of DE
  Non-Presenting Author

• Deborah Nichols, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author