Research Article

Moody, A.K. (2010). Using electronic books in the classroom to enhance emergent literacy skills in young children. Journal of Literacy and Technology, 11(4). 22-50.

Accessible online here

This article was all about e-storybooks and whether or not they are actually shown to be helpful to students. It talked a lot about how high quality interactive e-storybooks might support early literacy skills, but evidence also shows that low quality books sometimes have distracting features (animations and sounds) that offer little relation to the story.

In the beginning, it talks about how prior experiences are a must, and without them, students are at-risk for reading failure and that schools are then responsible for remediating these problems. They also said that early skills such as letter recognition, phonemic awareness, letter-sound relationships, and concepts about print are best to be taught without e-storybooks, though other types of technology could be used. This made sense, especially with concepts about print, because you need to have a book physically in your hands to get a lot of this information. The article detailed, however, that directionality and return sweeps are usually demonstrated well in e-storybooks.

The article discussed how much reading aloud to children has been researched and how effective this is in terms of emergent literacy skills and reading readiness, so the question is really how e-storybooks play into this and whether they are as effective as being read to by a caregiver or other reader.

Within the classroom, e-storybooks are often used in early childhood classrooms where students lack the ability to read independently and with students with special needs who may not be able to read on their own. It was pointed out that students benefit from being read to and from the text-highlighting features that are often included. Further, students are often highly motivated by using e-storybooks because of the text-highlighting, page turning, text to speech capabilities, animations, sounds, and music. In this way, e-storybooks are helpful, since students will often not learn how to read if they are not motivated to do so. E-storybooks also provided extra support in the realm of students who are not read to at home, students who do not have books available at home, schools where books aren't as readily available, and students who don't have the attention span to be read aloud to (the multimedia presentation often sustains their attention for longer periods of time).

In at least one study conducted in 2006 on 5-year-olds, children reading the e-storybook as opposed to the traditional books experienced increased comprehension and vocabulary words. Students from economically-disadvantaged backgrounds also preferred the e-storybook versions opposed to the traditional versions.

The article detailed how to use e-storybooks, or what to keep in mind. The main points:

• Choose developmentally appropriate e-storybooks
• Avoid distracting features
• Choose engaging and attractive books
• Choose books with an attractive and engaging layout
• Look for readers that use expression
• Look for books that highlight the text
• Look for text to speech options (offer the opportunity for the child to read as well as be read to)

The article also pointed out that e-storybooks often do a lot of the things that adults do as they are reading. For the ease of reading, I'll simply post the chart.


Overall, the findings were that e-storybooks are helpful and provide a good resource for students and teachers, but they should not be a student's only exposure in the classroom or at home to books.