Dynamic Versus Static Dictionary With and ... - Wiley Online Library

Dynamic Versus Static Dictionary With and Without Printed Focal Words in E-Book Reading as Facilitator for Word Learning Ofra Korat

ABSTR ACT

Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

We investigated the extent to which a dictionary embedded in an e-book with static or dynamic visuals with and without printed focal words affects word learning. A pretest–posttest design was used to measure gains of expressive words’ meaning and their spelling. The participants included 250 Hebrewspeaking second graders from low-socioeconomic status families who were randomly assigned to five equal groups. Four groups read the e-book with a dictionary with (1) static visuals (SVs) without the printed focal words, (2) dynamic visuals (DVs) without the printed focal words, (3) SVs with the printed focal words, or (4) DVs with the printed focal words. The fifth group read the e-book without a dictionary (control). The results show that word explanations and word use progressed the most after reading the e-book with DVs and printed focal words. Less progress was observed when reading with SVs with printed focal words and DVs without printed focal words. Even less progress was observed when reading with SVs without printed focal words. The lowest support was in the control group, who read the e-book without a dictionary. Word spelling progressed significantly in all groups. This study contributes to our knowledge on the potential benefits of multimedia for supporting the language and literacy of preschoolers. More specifically, it shows the contribution of a dynamic dictionary together with printed focal words for expressive word learning, along with the benefit of highlighted text in an e-book for supporting word spelling.

Iris Levin Tel Aviv University, Israel

Anat Ben-Shabt Dafna Shneor Limor Bokovza Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

L

Reading Research Quarterly, 49(4) pp. 371–386 | doi:10.1002/rrq.78 © 2014 International Reading Association

anguage and literacy enhancement have been the goal of numerous educational programs for years, especially for children from disadvantaged communities and families of low socioeconomic status (SES). During the past two decades, technology software, including e-books, have become incorporated within this agenda. Digital technology has been normalized by the younger generation and integrated into the daily life of many homes and schools (Espinosa, Laffey, Whittaker, & Sheng, 2006). New forms of literacy and narrative have emerged, including e-storybooks on the Internet, the iPad, the iPhone, and other media. U.S. and U.K. e-book markets are growing steadily, and big publishers have reported that over 30% of their revenues in 2013 came from digital books (Owen, 2013). Young children of today from different cultures and languages listen to or read e-books. For example, according to a recent survey among 1,200 families in the United States, 54% of parents reported that their children ages 2–13 read e-books, and 85% of the parents reported that the children do it at least once a week (Greenfield, 2012). Furthermore, in a  study involving 94 Israeli (Hebrew-speaking) middle- and low-SES

371

families, it was found that 95% had computers in their homes and that all of these homes had at least five software programs for young children, including e-books (Landau, 2005). A new body of research exploring 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, 2009; Korat & Shamir, 2008, 2012; Smeets & Bus, 2014). Many e-books for children replicate well-known storybooks. Most of these e-books are programmed to be interactive and include multimedia effects, such as oral reading, written text, oral discourse, music, sound effects, and animation. They provide children with a new reading experience, which enables them to engage in listening to stories or reading them independently as well as  to visually follow the stories using a digital system. Multimedia applications can provide children with a lively picture of the story’s meaning, including linguistic as well as paralinguistic features such as body language, gestures, and prosody (Brett, 1995; Neuman, 1997, 2013). Many e-books include hidden hotspots, which are devices embedded in the screen that sometimes provide additional information about the story or the text. Clicking on a glowing word in the text sometimes gives the child an explanation of the word and clarifies its meaning. The oral reading of the text by a narrator, accompanied by the highlighted text, can also provide insights into the nature of the written text by allowing children to carefully follow the written words, phrases, or passages that are being read to them. Reading e-books that incorporate a built-in dictionary may offer young children the opportunity to learn the meaning of new words and their spelling. The current study examined an e-book format developed by the authors that offers a dynamic dictionary embedded in this software and aimed at enriching the word learning (vocabulary and word spelling) of Hebrew-speaking children.

Children’s Vocabulary Children’s rich vocabulary is considered to be an important infrastructure for reading accuracy and reading comprehension (McKeown & Beck, 2004; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000). It is well acknowledged that there is an enormous difference among young children in their vocabulary volume and that this affects their future literacy and academic progress (Hart & Risley, 1995; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) in the United States recommended several important principles for vocabulary instruction: direct teaching of new words, repetition of word learning, embedding new words in meaningful contexts, and

372 | Reading Research Quarterly, 49(4)

offering children an active role in this process. The panel also suggested that technology tools should be used to foster children’s vocabulary. These ideas were incorporated in the current study. Although the text in storybooks often includes many words for which young children need explanations, most e-books available on the market lack this option. For example, out of 43 Hebrew e-books, only 4.3% included a dictionary (Korat & Shamir, 2004), and out of 55 Dutch e-books, only 11% had this function (de Jong & Bus, 2003). A dictionary option that explains the meanings of difficult words within the authentic context of the story seems to us an attractive and efficient context for supporting children’s vocabulary, which may also support story comprehension.

E-Book With Dictionary Based on the limitations of e-books available on the market (de Jong & Bus, 2003; Korat & Shamir, 2004), we developed e-storybooks with a dictionary aimed at extending young children’s word learning, including the words’ meanings and spellings, and story comprehension. In these e-books, one difficult word that appears in the text is explained orally by the narrator after the narrator finishes reading the text on the screen. Furthermore, a (static) figurative representation of the word meaning appears simultaneously on the screen alongside the focal word’s spelling. We wanted to produce an effective research-based multimedia tool for supporting young children’s language and literacy. This idea goes hand in hand with the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 1996, 2001; Mayer & Anderson, 1992; Mayer & Fiorella, 2014; Mayer & Moreno, 1998, 2002, 2003), which focuses on creating more efficient and evidence-based computer multimedia instruction. The main question raised by researchers promoting this theory is how words or text (oral and written) and pictures (static or animated) should be presented to provide meaningful learning. According to the theory, multimedia narrations and graphical images (pictures or text) produce verbal and visual mental representations, which are elaborated in the working memory and might be integrated with prior knowledge to create a new understanding. The working memory includes auditory and visual channels, similar to the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketch pad presented in Baddeley’s (1986) theory of working memory. Each subsystem has a limited capacity. This is consistent with the cognitive load theory (Sweller, Ayres, & Kalyuga, 2011). According to Mayer (1996), human beings are knowledgeconstructing processors who produce meaningful learning by attending to relevant information, organizing it in coherent representational structures, and integrating it

with their existing knowledge. Connections can be made only if corresponding visual and verbal representations are in the working memory at the same time. This is similar to Paivio’s (1986, 2008) dual coding theory. The dictionary we created in the e-book explains only one difficult word on each screen because of the children’s young age and to prevent cognitive load. The word meaning is presented by a short oral explanation (one word or phrase), and a pictorial presentation of the focal word appears simultaneously alongside the printed word. A series of studies using the e-books with the dictionary format we developed with children ages 4–7 (Korat, 2009, 2010; Korat & Shamir, 2007, 2008, 2012; Shamir, Korat, & Barbi, 2008; Shamir, Korat, & Fellah, 2012) showed that three to five reading sessions improved children’s comprehension of the focal words.

Dynamic Versus Static Presentation It is important to note that not all e-books available on the market include dynamic visuals (DVs), and many have only static visuals (SVs), similar to traditional printed books (Korat & Shamir, 2004). The e-book that we developed for our study had a limited number of DVs (3 or 4) that appeared automatically on the screen for supporting story comprehension, whereas the dictionary had only a SV presentation. Recent studies have shown that DVs in e-books have a better potential for supporting young children’s language learning than static presentations (Smeets & Bus, 2014; Verhallen & Bus, 2010; Verhallen, Bus, & de Jong, 2006). For example, Verhallen et al. compared the effects of two e-books, one with SVs and the other with DVs, on language skills and narrative comprehension of kindergartners from low-income immigrant families in the Netherlands. The results showed that children who were exposed to DVs demonstrated greater progress in language skills and narrative comprehension than those exposed to SVs. The authors concluded that multimedia storybooks could be an efficient vehicle for promoting linguistic information, especially for children who lag behind their cohorts in language and literacy skills. These findings show that when the pictorial presentation is dynamic (animated), it serves as a better attraction for children’s attention than the static presentation, which may further support the contiguity between the oral presentation and the illustrations (e.g., Mayer & Moreno, 1998). Animations are regarded as requiring a less effortful process. They may present temporal changes and process durations more explicitly than a static presentation. The viewer must only perceive the change and does not need to infer it from the figure (Hegarty, Kriz, & Cate,

2003). This may work well for story comprehension, which requires understanding the story characters’ mental processes and motives, as well as for difficult word learning.

Print Presentation in Multimedia The e-books that we created and researched included a pictorial presentation, an oral explanation, and a printed format of the focal word, and we tested children’s progress in word-meaning learning. The new question we raise in the current research is whether the printed words presented in the dictionary have any effect on children’s vocabulary and word spelling. It is well known that word knowledge involves multiple dimensions and ranges from partial to complete (Nagy & Scott, 2000), including semantic meanings and the words’ orthographic forms. To  date, very few researchers have examined whether exposure to the spellings of words contributes to vocabulary learning. Furthermore, vocabulary instruction experts (e.g., Beck & McKeown, 2007; Biemiller, 2004) include only slight, if any, recommendations of print incorporation. Rosenthal and Ehri (2008) claim that when new words are encountered in print, they are transformed into pronunciations, which are then stored in memory along with the words’ meanings. Accordingly, the researchers found that the orthographic presentation of words for schoolchildren accompanied by word explanations benefited vocabulary learning. Rosenthal and Ehri explained this outcome by claiming that word spelling activates graphophonemic connections and supports the memory of word meaning. Furthermore, according to Ehri’s (1992, 1999, 2005) connectionist theory, orthographic knowledge of words provides a powerful mnemonic device that helps readers keep the pronunciations in memory. For connections to be formed, readers must know how graphemes stand for phonemes in the writing system. As a result of this process, a word’s orthographic presentation becomes bonded to the word meaning and pronunciation, which create an amalgam that is stored in memory. The effects of printed words (or text) in multimedia tools on students’ learning was investigated by Mayer and his colleagues (Mayer, 2001; Mayer & Anderson, 1992; Mayer & Moreno, 1998, 2003) as part of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. One of the effects included in the theory is called the redundancy principle, which focuses on print presentation in multimedia tools and their effects on learning. According to this principle, better learning occurs when animation and narration are not combined with printed text, which is called a nonredundant situation. The idea is that when graphic representations, such as pictures and printed words (written text), are both presented (a redundant situation), this can

Dynamic Versus Static Dictionary With and Without Printed Focal Words in E-Book Reading as Facilitator for Word Learning | 373

overload the visual working memory capacity and, therefore, interfere with the processes of learning. For example, in a botany game presented on a desktop computer, one group viewed animations and heard concurrent explanations (nonredundant group), whereas the second group viewed animations, heard concurrent explanations, and also saw an on-screen text that was identical to the spoken explanations (redundant group; Mayer & Fiorella, 2014). The nonredundant group performed better than the redundant group. However, in some situations, the presentation of pictorial and print elements together with corresponding narration might lead to efficient learning. This occurs when only few printed words are presented next to the corresponding part of a graphic in a narrated animation. In this case, the printed words may not be enough to distract the learner from the graphic and may even signal where to look, while also helping to reinforce the main verbal content (Mayer & Johnson, 2008).

The Current Study In this study, we investigated the extent to which two parameters of the lexicon embedded in an e-book—SVs

or DVs, and absence or presence of the printed focal words—promote word meaning and spelling among children of low-SES families. To investigate these questions, we developed a new e-book format that incorporates DVs in a dictionary embedded in the story reading. This format differs from e-books used in previous studies in which the DVs were incorporated into the general story scene but not in a dictionary format (e.g., Verhallen et al., 2006). We provided the children with direct, focused explanations of difficult words included in the story. The dictionary appears in four different modes: SVs without the printed words, DVs without the printed words, SVs with the printed words, and DVs with the printed words. The same oral reading of the text together with oral explanations for difficult verbs appeared automatically on the screen in all modes, after the entire page was read by the narrator. The explanations were accompanied by two types of illustrations: a SV or DV format with or without the printed focal word (see Figure 1). The new software that we developed enables comparing the effects of two mnemonic devices on vocabulary acquisition: dynamic illustration and spelling of target words. The orthogonal use of these two presentation features (SVs or DVs, with or without printed

FIGURE 1 Four Optional Modes of the Dictionary: Dynamic Visual (DV) With the Printed Word, DV Without the Printed Word, Static Visual (SV) With the Printed Word, and SV Without the Printed Word

With print

Without print

374 | Reading Research Quarterly, 49(4)

Dynamic

Static

words) can help researchers examine the separate and combined effects of each device. Following the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2001; Mayer & Fiorella, 2014), we assume that the two combined features—DVs and print—will have a greater effect on word learning than each feature separately. This is assumed when taking Mayer’s redundancy principle into account and when using a short printed word presentation (one word) near the pictorial presentation and simultaneously with the narration (short oral explanation of the word) corresponding to the two graphical presentations (print and pictorial presentation). Most studies that focused on young children’s vocabulary enhancement assessed receptive vocabulary, usually measured by multiple-choice tests (Sénéchal, 1997). However, vocabulary comprises various dimensions of knowledge, including word comprehension and production. Production tests are more demanding than word recognition, which might be supported by the verbal context or guessing (Baumann & Kameenui, 1991). In the present study, we intended to examine second graders’ expressive vocabulary learning as well as the spelling of the focal words. The participants in this research were second graders from low-SES neighborhoods. Children from low-SES families are considered to be at risk for literacy and academic failure; therefore, developing intervention models for supporting their language and literacy is a crucial goal. Research from various countries has shown differences in the literacy achievements of children from lowand middle-SES families (Burgess, Hecht, & Lonigan, 2002; Korat, Bachar, & Snapir, 2003; Wells, 1985). An important factor contributing to this gap is the relatively poorer home literacy environment, the limited number of literacy activities, and lower levels of parental mediation during such activities (Aram & Levin, 2002; Heath, 1983; Korat, Klein, & Segal-Drori, 2007; Korat & Levin, 2001). Vocabulary volume in early childhood has been estimated as 5 times greater among preschoolers from middle-SES families than those from low-SES families, and this gap only widens during the school years (Stahl & Nagy, 2006). This lag is regarded as one of the reasons for the relatively low achievements of children from low-SES families in academic skills, including reading accuracy and spelling (White, Graves, & Salter, 1990). Researchers have noted that multimedia may be especially gainful in language proficiency for at-risk children. They might especially gain from repeated encounters with the same story presented with multimedia features (Linebarger, Kosanic, Greenwood, & Doku, 2004; Sharp et al., 1995; Verhallen et al., 2006). We hypothesize that DVs illustrating word meanings will have a greater effect on all measures than will SVs. This hypothesis is based on the multimedia principle

(Mayer, 2001; Mayer & Fiorella, 2014), including evidence for the superiority of animation compared with a static presentation and from preliminary evidence from e-book contexts (Verhallen et al., 2006). However, in the current study, contrary to Verhallen et  al.’s study, the DVs are embedded in a dictionary that illustrates the focal words. This type of presentation is not only less costly (only one hotspot) but also more directive and may be more efficient, especially for children who lag behind and can easily be distracted by numerous hotspots. We also hypothesize that the printed word incorporated in the dictionary will have a greater effect on all measures compared with word meanings presented in the dictionary without print. This hypothesis is based on Rosenthal and Ehri ’s (2008) study, which showed greater improvement in learning word meanings presented on cards. However, in the current study, the effect of print was studied in the context of a dictionary embedded in an e-book, so the focal words appeared in the text. This assumption was also based on Mayer’s (2001) redundancy principle, aiming at minimizing cognitive load by using short printed words near the pictorial presentation and simultaneously presenting the oral narration that corresponds to the two graphical presentations (print and pictorial presentation; Mayer & Moreno, 2003). We also explored whether the two parameters (animation and print) interact. This study thus raises theoretical and practical questions on efficient ways for advancing word learning. Our questions were as follows: 1. Will the DV presentation of the focal words in the digital dictionary improve children’s learning of words’ meanings and spellings better than the SV presentation will? 2. Will the printed word presentation of the focal words improve children’s learning of words’ meanings and spellings better than without the printed presentation? 3. Will the combination of DVs and printed word presentation support children’s learning of words’ meanings and spellings better than the separate presentation will?

Method Participants A total of 215 native-born Israeli (Hebrew-speaking) second graders (ages 7 and 8) were recruited for the study through the school system. In Israel, children typically go  to their neighborhood school, which usually serves families with similar SES backgrounds, as was the case in  our study. The schools were located in low-SES

Dynamic Versus Static Dictionary With and Without Printed Focal Words in E-Book Reading as Facilitator for Word Learning | 375

neighborhoods (defined by level of education, profession, and income) according to the Israeli Ministry of Education criteria (Central Bureau of Statistics, 1999). According to these criteria, the mean number of years of parental schooling in Israel is 10.60, compared with the mean for middle-SES parents of 16.70; the mean percentage of parents working as professionals is 3.80%, compared with the mean for middle-SES parents of 35.60%; and the mean monthly per capita income is ₪1,497 (equivalent to roughly US$432 as of June 6, 2014), compared with the mean monthly income for middle-SES households of ₪3,138 (equivalent to roughly US$906). A short interview with the school principals yielded that parents had an average of 10–12 years of formal schooling, much of which was obtained in vocational schools, and that most of the parents were blue-collar workers (e.g., drivers, caregivers, sanitation, cleaning workers). According to a national research study on the 2002 Programme for International Student Assessment (Hablin, Walters, Wolf, Siag-Hadad, & Kemersky, 2004), the gap between the literacy level of Israeli children from low-SES families and those from middle-SES families is the largest among the countries that participated in the research. Studies carried out in Israel showed that this gap begins in kindergarten and also includes measures of vocabulary (Aram & Levin, 2002). Because the focus of this article is on Hebrew-speaking children, the nature of the Hebrew script and children’s spelling development is briefly reviewed here. In the Hebrew orthography, all letters stand for consonants, while four of them also designate vowels. Consonants are fully represented by letters, whereas vowels are only partially represented (Korat & Levin, 2002; Levin, Korat, & Amsterdamer, 1996). In fact, there are two different systems of marking vowels in Hebrew. One system, nonpointed, is composed of the aforementioned four letters and represents vowels partially and ambiguously. The other system, pointed, is composed of diacritical marks (dots and dashes) inserted under, above, or between letters. The diacritics represent the vowels fully, but their use is optional. They are used in special texts, such as poetry and books addressed at children up to the fourth grade, as in the case of our study. The e-book that we presented is in pointed Hebrew. Children, like adults, rarely use diacritics in their own written texts (Levin et al., 1996). Thus, in this study, we focused on the system of nonpointed spelling. In Israel, formal reading and writing instruction begins at age 6–7. However, children are exposed to storybooks in the education system from a very young age. These usually include a rich vocabulary that can promote children’s language. Furthermore, the children examined in the current research were second graders, who have already acquired the graphophonemic code in Hebrew and know which letters designate which sounds. The

376 | Reading Research Quarterly, 49(4)

children’s spelling is, however, not yet fully conventional. Children’s spelling errors at this age typically occur in homophones and in voweling letters (Ravid, 2001). The children studied in schools that use a similar nationally prescribed program for reading and writing during the elementary school years from first grade onward. Reading and writing instruction in schools starts in grade 1, with emphasis on phonics and letter–sound correspondence at the lower levels, moving to a greater emphasis on whole-text meaning at the higher levels. The children who participated in the study had initial experience with computers individually and in small groups as part of the curriculum. The sample was randomly assigned to five groups. Four of the groups read an e-book with a dictionary, with each group using a different mode: SVs without the printed word (n = 45), DVs without the printed word (n = 42), SVs with the printed word (n = 43), and DVs with the printed word (n = 41). In one group, the reading of the e-book was without a dictionary (control; n = 44). Gender balance was maintained in all groups.

The E-Book The e-book that we used is an electronic version of The Empty Pot by the Chinese author-illustrator Demi (1990), which is available in a Hebrew version as He’Atzitz Ha’rek (Demi, 2007). The story’s structure and narrative elements—setting, characters, goal/initiating event, problem, and solution/ending (Mandler & Johnson, 1977)—appear eminently suitable given the age of the study’s participants. The story’s protagonist is a Chinese child named Ping, who invests gardening skills and efforts in vain but is eventually rewarded for his diligence and honesty. A large, colorful, and attractive illustration, covering most of the page, appears on each of the book ’s 30 pages, along with two or three written sentences, totaling about 25 words. The written text is printed in pointed letters (nekudot in Hebrew) so children can also decode the printed text.

Description of the E-Book We scanned the printed book ’s pages for the e-book to maintain similarity between the two versions. For reading duration reasons, the printed format of the book was shortened from 30 pages to 21 (in terms of illustrations), but the original written text was kept. All reading screens presented the book illustrations in their static format, and an oral reading of the printed text was highlighted at the phrase level. The e-book included a dictionary, which explains one word per page (total of 17 words; see Table 1). We chose to include verbs in the dictionary for two reasons: (1) We assume that the DV mode can be a good way to support verb meaning, especially for representing actions. (2) Schoolchildren are engaged in intensive learning of verbs in school lessons

TABLE 1 Verbs That Appeared in the Dictionary Word

English meaning

‫שעט‬

galloped

‫לבלב‬

blossomed

‫מינה‬

appointed

‫העניק‬

bestowed

‫זרם‬

flowed

‫נכלם‬

shamed

‫האזין‬

listened

‫המתין‬

waited

‫טיפח‬

cultivated

‫עמל‬

toiled

‫התייצב‬

stood before

‫סקר‬

surveyed

‫זעף‬

raged

‫נטל‬

took

‫השתוקק‬

yearned

‫הרכין‬

inclined (his head)

‫חפץ‬

desired

according to the national curriculum. This is especially true for Hebrew-speaking children because the language has a rich bound morphology (Berman, 1999). Verbs in the text appeared in the dictionary transformed into the past tense, singular, masculine form, which has been found to be the basic, easiest form (Armon-Lotem & Berman, 2003; Berman, 1993). Difficult verbs were chosen following a pilot study performed with 22 second graders from the same low-SES neighborhoods in which the study was performed. These children were randomly chosen from two classes in two schools and were not included later in the main study. The researchers read the story that we used in the research aloud to the children individually and then asked them the meanings of 23 verbs that we thought might be difficult for them; the least known 17 words were then chosen. The dictionary appears in four different modes, all of which offer the same oral reading of the text, together with an oral explanation for a difficult verb that appears automatically on the screen after an entire page has been read by the narrator. The four modes of the dictionary are SVs without the printed word, DVs without the printed word, SVs with the printed word, and DVs with the printed word. There is another mode (control) that presents the e-book with its illustrations and oral reading with the printed and highlighted text but without the dictionary.

The dynamic and static dictionaries differ only in the visual presentations. For example, the explanation of the word blossomed in the static dictionary is as follows: At the end of the narrators’ reading of the screen, a large bubble appears with the target written form of the word and a figurative static presentation of a flower, with the narrator concomitantly saying a short explanation of the word (see Figure  1). In the DV dictionary, the explanation for the word is presented in exactly the same way, except that a large bubble that appears on the screen shows an animation of a bud slowly turning into a flower.

Research Tools The children’s skills were assessed using several measures before and after the interventions.

Word Meaning: Expressive The children were orally presented with the 17 target words, one at a time, and asked to explain their meanings. This test was based on similar tests used by Aram and Levin (2004) and Snow, Cancino, Gonzalez, and Shriberg (1989). For example, the child was asked, “What is the meaning of he’enik (bestowed)?” Two examples were provided prior to testing. The children’s responses were coded according to an ordinal scale ranging from 0 to 4. A child who provided no answer or a wrong answer received 0 points. A child who explained the word via a phonologically similar word was awarded 1 point because this response suggests that the child is aware that phonological similarity in Hebrew, because of its root-based morphology, often occurs between semantically close words. For example, a child who explained that he’enik (bestowed) means henik (breast-fed) was awarded 1 point. A child who explained the word by using it in a suitable context was given 2 points. For example, a child explained that he’enik (bestowed) means “he bestowed something to a girl, a gift.” A child who explained the word by using a synonym or an appropriate short explanation scored a 3. For example, a child replied that he’enik (bestowed) means “like a present, something that you give.” Finally, a child was given 4 points if his or her explanation was the one supplied by the adult or the dictionary. For example, a child replied that he’enik (bestowed) means gave. The score range is 1–4. Inter-rater reliability was done for 20% of the participants across two raters for the measures of the study. The Cohen’s Kappa for word explanation measure was .90 (p < .001). Internal reliability assessed by Cronbach’s α was .69 for the pretest and .81 for the posttest (p < .001). Similar Cohen’s Kappa ratings and internal reliability appeared for the same tool conducted by Korat, Levin, Atishkin, and Turgeman (2014) in a former study performed with kindergartners from a middle-SES Israeli group.

Dynamic Versus Static Dictionary With and Without Printed Focal Words in E-Book Reading as Facilitator for Word Learning | 377

Using the Target Word in Story Retelling

Intervention

We developed a test to learn how often children use the new words they were taught in the e-book reading. We asked the children to retell the story using the hardcopy version of the e-book The Empty Pot. This version had only the illustrations of the book without the printed text. The children were asked to retell the story: “Here is the book The Empty Pot that you are already familiar with. Please retell the story to me page after page. Do it as best as you can.” The children’s retellings were audiotaped and later transcribed. The transcriptions were coded by counting the number of target verbs that each child used, either in the exact form as they appeared in the text or in an inflected or derived form based on the same root. The score range was 0–17. The inter-rater reliability for this measure across two raters using Cohen’s Kappa was .88 (p < .001). Internal reliability assessed by Cronbach’s α was .50 for the pretest and .75 for the posttest (p < .001). Similar Cohen’s Kappa ratings and internal reliability appeared for the same tool conducted by the authors in a former study performed with kindergartners from a middle-SES Israeli group. The range of children’s scores in that study was 0.43–2.03.

Each child was randomly assigned to one of the five e-book reading groups: (1) reading with a dictionary with SVs and printed words, (2) reading with a dictionary with DVs and printed words, (3) reading with a dictionary with SVs without printed words, (4) reading with a dictionary with DVs without printed words, and (5) reading with no dictionary (control group). The children in this study worked on the e-book in pairs, based on the positive impact of peer learning using a computer on children’s achievements in various content areas (Hooper, 1992; Salomon, 1991), and on the fact that schoolchildren usually work on computers in pairs (Lewin, 1998). The children’s activity with the e-book took place in school in a separate room. The e-book activity was repeated four times. Each reading activity took place on a different day, separated by three days at most. Each pair of children was shown how the software operates and was given instructions on the channel of the book for which they were chosen. They were told the following:

Word Spelling The children were asked to write the 17 dictionary focal words one at a time. The experimenter told the child, “I will say words, and I am asking you to write them. Every time, I will say one word, you will say it, and afterward you are asked to write it down.” This ensured that the child heard the correct word. The coding scale for each word was 0 for an incorrect spelling and 1 for the correct spelling. The inter-rater reliability for this measure across two raters using Cohen’s Kappa was .98 (p < .001). Internal reliability assessed by Cronbach’s α was .55 for the pretest and .66 for the posttest (p < .001). The children’s spelling errors were counted for each incorrect letter. The interrater reliability for this measure across two raters using Cohen’s Kappa was .98 (p < .001). Internal reliability assessed by Cronbach’s α was .58 for the pretest and .68 for the posttest (p < .001). Similar word spelling tests and analyses were performed in our previous research on second graders from the low-SES group (Korat & Levin, 2002). See similar tests by Aram and Levin (2004) using similar scales with Hebrew-speaking children.

The Study’s Procedure Pretest Each child was met at school in a private room and individually processed the e-book without a dictionary. Following the e-book reading, the child was tested on all three tests.

378 | Reading Research Quarterly, 49(4)

We brought you an e-book that you can work with on the computer. You’re invited to work with it. Please take turns in operating the mouse: One of you will use it on one page, then the other on the next page, and so on. After you finish working, we’ ll ask you some questions.

The children were given technical support as needed, but no other adult support was given during the sessions. Each session lasted about 20–25 minutes. The children were expected to click to move the screens forward but, as noted previously, before the dictionary explanations in the four different modes appeared automatically on the screen after the entire page was read by the narrator. Thus, all children heard the meaning of the difficult word on a page in their dictionary option mode.

Posttest Following the final e-book activity, the children were assessed using the same tasks administered in the pretest. No more than five days elapsed between the last intervention activity and the postintervention assessment.

Results A univariate ANOVA for each of the five groups that read the e-book was performed for each score separately: word explanation, word use, word spelling, and number of spelling errors. No significant differences were found in the pretests among children’s scores in the five groups, indicating that the groups were well matched on all measured parameters. A two-way ANOVA of 2 (Time: pre vs. post) × 5 (Group: reading the e-book: dictionary with DVs with

printed words, dictionary with DVs without printed words, dictionary with SVs with printed words, dictionary with SVs without printed words; and reading the e-book without a dictionary [control]) was performed for each score separately: word explanation, word use, word spelling, and number of spelling errors.

possible group pairs in the pretest (grouping †). This grouping also includes the posttest of the control group. The pairwise analysis detected another grouping with similar means: SVs without and with print, and DVs without print (grouping ††). Finally, the DVs with print group was different compared with the other three interventions (grouping †††). This means that the intervention group of DVs with print presentation made the highest progress compared with the control and all other interventions. The results are also illustrated in Figure 2a.

Word Explanation Table  2 presents means (and standard errors) of word explanation scores in the pretest and the posttest. Significant differences were found for time (F[1, 210] = 197.84, p < .000, η2p = 0.485) and for groups (F[4, 210] =  4.23, p = .003, η2p = 0.08). An interaction was found for time by group: F(4, 210) = 7.17, p < .001, η2p = 0.12. The five groups were compared by two-way ANOVA on differences in scores between the pretest and the posttest word explanations followed by a Bonferroni pairwise test. The Bonferroni analysis compares all possible pairs across timepoints and groups, such that the results indicate the source of the variance difference. This test is more robust compared with the least square difference method and is highly reliable due to balanced data, so no correction for unbalanced data is necessary. Grouping results are reported with daggers in Table 2. The same number of daggers in Table  2 for two different intervention groups indicates that their mean difference is not different from zero at p < .05. For example, no significant mean difference was found between all

Using Target Verbs in Story Retelling Means (and standard errors) of the children using target verbs in story retelling in the pretest and the posttest are presented in Table 3. Significant differences appeared for time (F[1, 210] = 91.54, p < .001, η2p = 0.30) and for groups (F[4, 210] = 2.54, p = .04, η2p = 0.05). An interaction was found for  time by group: F(4, 210) = 2.48, p = .05, η2p = 0.05. The five groups were compared by two-way ANOVA on  differences in scores between the pretest and the posttest using target verbs in story retelling followed by a Bonferroni test. Grouping results are reported with daggers in Table  3. As in Table  2, the same number of daggers for two different groups means that the mean difference is not different from zero at p < .05. The results showed that all groups progressed from pretest

TABLE 2 Analysis of Variance for Word Explanation Pretest Group

Mean

Standard error

Posttest 95% confidence interval

Mean

Standard error

95% confidence interval

Control

0.58†

0.06

[0.45, 0.70]

0.74†

0.11

[0.52, 0.95]

Static visuals without print

0.67

†

0.06

[0.55, 0.79]

1.24

††

0.11

[1.02, 1.45]

Static visuals with print

0.71†

0.06

[0.59, 0.84]

1.25††

0.11

[1.03, 1.47]

Dynamic visuals without print

0.58†

0.06

[0.45, 0.70]

1.14††

0.11

[0.92, 1.36]

Dynamic visuals with print

0.71†

0.06

[0.59, 0.84]

1.48†††

0.11

[1.25, 1.70]

Total

0.65

0.03

[0.60, 0.71]

1.17

0.05

[1.07, 1.27]

ANOVA results

F

p

η

197.84