Children's responses to the interactivity of storybook apps in family shared reading events involving the iPad

Abstract

This paper reports on some data on the effects of screen‐based interactivity on children's engagement with storybook apps during family shared book reading that were gathered in a 2‐year, small‐scale ethnographic case study in Spain. Data analysis focuses on the complex interplay between the storybook app's interactive features and the children's responses to them. Our findings show that interactive elements increase the child's autonomy, as they tend to promote the importance of the reader, positioning him or her as a collaborator, storyteller, an author or an internal character in the fiction; something that can materialise in exciting narrative strategies that can trigger powerful responses to digital literary texts in emergent readers, including playing, creating new fictions or engaging emotionally with the story. Finally, we argue that the Reader Response models that have been used over recent decades to understand children's reading experiences with storybooks need to be revised to better understand their current experiences with interactive texts.

Children’s agency and reading with story-apps: considerations of design, behavioural and social dimensions

“…E-books provide a popular way for young children to access and enjoy stories, with advanced interactive and multimedia features distinguishing them from print books. So far, a body of experimental research has investigated the effects of interactivity and/or multimedia on children's learning outcomes such as story comprehension or vocabulary acquisition (e.g., Shamir & Baruch, 2012;Takacs, Swart & Bus, 2014) and several qualitative studies have documented children's enjoyment of digital stories shared at home (Aliagas & Margallo, 2017). This study aims to expand the current literature on children's e-books with a focus on a so-far little explored aspect of reading digital stories: the reader's agency.…”

Toward Reciprocity and Agency in Students’ Digital Reading

“…The measurements that researchers use to evaluate the benefits of diverse types of e‐books for students’ learning need to include not only traditional literacy skills, such as story comprehension and vocabulary gains, but also new literacy skills that are uniquely advanced with digital media and included in interactions with e‐books, such as swiping or scrolling on a page, customizing a story character (avatar), or recording a voice‐over to enhance the story plot. For the latter type of learning, researchers’ observations of children using interactive digital books show that the ability to customize and personalize story lines in relation to children’s own preferences and creative input can afford a sense of autonomy and desire to read (Aliagas & Margallo, ). E‐books that are open‐ended and designed with prompts and space for adults’ input can support a positive reading atmosphere at home (Kucirkova, Messer, Sheehy, & Flewitt, ) and joint conversations between parents and children (Troseth, Strouse, Flores, Stuckelman, & Johnson, ).…”

Children’s Reading With Digital Books: Past Moving Quickly to the Future

“…Several qualitative studies have focused on the development of typologies and the characterization of various types of features in digital books (e.g., Turrión, ). In observations of Spanish children’s engagement with digital books at home, interactive and multimedia features that actively involved the child in the story increased autonomy, enjoyment, and agency (Aliagas & Margallo, ). Such personalized reading experiences are created through embedded algorithms (automatic personalization) or a reader’s active contribution of content (agentic personalization).…”