E-BOOKS AND THEIR EFFECT ON COMPREHENSION:

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF E-BOOKS’ IN AN Ariel Morales

ELEMENTARY MONTESSORI CLASSROOM Franciscan University of
Steubenville
WHY RESEARCH E-BOOKS?
62% of 2- to 10-year-olds had access to either a
tablet or an e-reader for electronic reading at
home, and parents reported that about half of
those children were regularly engaged in
electronic reading.

(Rideout, 2014)
 Purpose for this Study:

◦ Relevance to 21st Century Learning

◦ Technology has changed the way in

which we read and perceive text

https://iread-project.eu/e-reader-app/
LITERATURE REVIEWS
Article 1
◦ Dore et al. (2018) write about the
importance of parent involvement in
reading and study the affect that parent
involvement has on children who read e-
books.
Article 2
◦ Recently, electronic books (e-books)
have become prevalent amongst the
general population and are beginning to
make their way into schools all over the
world. In South Africa, a number of
schools have integrated tablets into the
classroom with the promise of replacing
traditional books (Sackstein, Spark, and
Jenkins, 2015).
Article 3
◦ E-texts are on the rise across grade levels.
Schugar, Smith, and Schugar (2013)
conduct a review of e-texts for students
in grades k-6 across different content
areas.
Article 4
◦ Vocabulary development is a large
component of learning to read.
(Lee, 2017)
METHODOLOGY
 The Process:
Book Chosen: Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat

Students were broken into 3 groups

1. High Readers
2. Middle Readers
3. Low Readers

2 Students Were Chosen for Each Group

Student A: e-book
Student B: Physical Text

Students Played Dice Game

Students Were Scored on Their Comprehension

https://sites.psu.edu/ist110pursel/2015/10/17/prin
ted-books-or-ebooks-which-one-do-you-prefer/
Name:

0: The student gives no 1: The student gives 1-2 2: The student gives 3-5 3. The student gives more than
Scoring descriptive details and descriptive details and stays descriptive details and stays 5 descriptive details.
Guidelines: does not stay focused on mostly focused on the only focused on the question Some details are evident of
the question question inference and go beyond the
text’s literal meaning

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Total:
 Comprehension Questions Used:
Question 1: What is the Setting of the Story? Describe it.
(Alternative Question Form: Where Does the Story Take Place? Describe it.)
Question 2: Who Are the Characters of the Story? Describe One.
Question 3: Compare and Contrast two characters from the story.
(Alternative Question Form: Tell Me How Two Characters are Alike and Different.)
Question 4: Tell Me the Plot of the Story?
(Alternative Question Form: What Happened in the Story?)
Question 5: What Was Your Favorite Part of the Story? Why?
Question 6: What Was the Moral of this Story?
(Alternative Question Form: What Did You Learn From this Story?)
FINDINGS
 Comprehension Scores
20

18

16

14

12

10

0
High Level Readers Middle Readers Low Readers

E-Book Physical Text

Results https://www.eschoolnews.com/2018/08/17/educators-
report-low-confidence-in-ed-tech-research/

The students who read from the e-book earned lower scores than those who read from the
physical text.

Given the small number of participants there can be no conclusion as to whether or not the e-
book has an effect on readers’ comprehension.
WHAT NOW?
References
Dore, R.A., Hassinger-das, B., Brezack, N., Valladares, T.L., Paller, A., Vu, L....Hirsh-Pasek, K.
(2018). The parent advantage in fostering children’s e-book comprehension. Early
Childhood Research Quarterly, (44).
Isaacson, Sarah. (2017). The impact of interface on ESL reading comprehension and strategy
use: A comparison of e-books and paper texts. TESOL Journal 8 (4)
Lee, S. (2017). Learning vocabulary through e-book reading of young children with various
reading abilities. Springer Science and Business. 2017.
Rideout, V. (2014). Learning at home: Families educational media use in America. The Joan
Ganz Cooney Center.
Sackstein, S., Spark, L., & Jenkins, A. (2015). Are e-books effective tools for learning? Reading
speed and comprehension: iPad vs. paper. South African Journal of Education, 35(4).
Schugar, H. Smith, C. Schugar, J. (2013). Teaching with interactive picture books in grades k-6.
The Reading Teacher. 66(8).
Zipke, A. (2014). Building an e-book library: Resources for finding the best apps. The Reading
Teacher. 67(5).