Phonetically decodable e-books – impact on early reading practices and progress.
Kirsty Masterton
Keywords: e-books; early reading; decoding; decodable books; phonics programme; parent/carer support for e-book reading.
The government and Ofsted are committed to synthetic phonics as the method of teaching early reading in England (Glazzard & Stones, 2020). A key feature of validated phonics programmes is that they provide decodable reading books, which must be closely matched to the stage of pupil learning, enabling pupils to practise the learned grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Decodable texts are used for practising reading within school and at home. Some phonics programmes provide decodable books in both print and e-book form.
E-books are typically more cost effective than print books (Clinton, 2019) and they can also offer an engaging medium, opportunities for independent reading and ease of implementation for teachers (Brueck & Lenhart, 2015). Although there is existing research comparing children’s e-books and print books, most studies focus on comprehension outcomes (Furenes et al., 2021) and many on adult-read e-books (Kucirkova, 2019). Few studies have considered the effect of e-books on phonological awareness, with those that do being mainly small-scale studies (Littleton et al, 2006; Wood, 2005; Shamir & Korat, 2015). Some studies have pointed to less parent-initiated discussion with e-books (Furenes et al., 2021; Korat & Or, 2010).
This study, which is being planned as a proposal for a part-time EdD, will aim to explore two key questions:
- What impact does the use of decodable reading scheme e-books, compared to print versions of the same, have on decoding progress/attainment in early readers (reception and year 1) in UK primary schools?
- How does the provision of decodable reading scheme e-books affect the way that parents/carers support and scaffold reading practise at home?
For ethical and practical reasons, a quasi-experimental approach to the study is planned, recruiting participant schools that are all following the same phonics programme, but with some using print books for home reading and some using e-books. As the phonics programme will incorporate assessments at key points throughout the two-year duration of the programme, this secondary data will be utilised, comparing mean assessment scores for children in the e-book and print book groups at each assessment point to establish whether the use of e-books has an impact on decoding attainment.
Insight into the typical frequency and duration of home reading sessions, level of parent involvement and parent child interaction will be gained via parent surveys, mainly by collecting quantitative data via multiple choice and Likert scale questions, as well as qualitative data via a limited number of open questions. The qualitative data will be analysed for themes via a thematic analysis approach.
I hope the findings of the study will inform schools and be useful in making resourcing decisions e.g. investment on print books or e-book libraries and for providing guidance for parents/carers on how to support reading at home. The phonics scheme/book publisher selected as the focus for the study would be interested in the findings, but other phonics schemes and publishers would also be interested as the findings may also be relevant to their own schemes and e-books. I hope that the findings could be disseminated more widely to add to the published research on e-books for children and extend it to cover decodable books used for learning to read.
References
Brueck, J. S., & Lenhart, L. A. (2015). E-books and TPACK: What teachers need to know. In Reading Teacher (Vol. 68, Issue 5, pp. 373–376). John Wiley and Sons Inc.
Clinton, V. (2019). Reading from paper compared to screens: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Reading, 42(2), 288–325.
Furenes, M. I., Kucirkova, N., & Bus, A. G. (2021). A Comparison of Children’s Reading on Paper Versus Screen: A Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 91(4), 483–517.
Glazzard, J., & Stones, S. (2020). A Rigorous Approach to the Teaching of Reading? Systematic Synthetic Phonics in Initial Teacher Education. Frontiers in Education, 5.
Korat, O., & Or, T. (2010). How new technology influences parent-child interaction: The case of e-book reading. First Language, 30(2), 139–154.
Kucirkova, N. (2019). Children’s Reading With Digital Books: Past Moving Quickly to the Future. Child Development Perspectives, 13(4), 208–214.
Littleton, K., Wood, C., & Chera, P. (2006). Interactions with talking books: phonological awareness affects boys’ use of talking books. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 22, 382–390.
Shamir, A., & Korat, O. (2015). Educational Electronic Books for Supporting Emergent Literacy of Kindergarteners At-Risk for Reading Difficulties—What Do We Know So Far? Computers in the Schools, 32(2), 105–121.
Wood, C. (2005). Beginning readers’ use of talking books software can affect their reading. Journal in Research and Reading, 28, 170-182.
16 responses to “Phonetically decodable e-books – impact on early reading practices and progress.”
Hi Kirsty, your talk sounds as if it will be thought-provoking so am looking forward to hearing it. A quick question for you is: As decodable books are cheaper than printable books, do you think that students will be missing out on opportunities of reading paper-based books with the enjoyment of the tactile element attached to physically turning the pages?
This is an interesting question Tracey. Unfortunately it’s not a question my research would answer directly. Research does exist that compares children’s print books and e-books and which considers enjoyment and engagement, although I’ve not yet found anything specific to the decodable books. The loss of the tactile element is a consideration, although some people might argue that the features of some e-books may make them more engaging.
I am interested to know if you have considered other phonics approaches in this study or are focusing solely on synthetic phonics. Do you have any thoughts on recent research questioning the approach? This may have no direct relevance for your research because you are comparing a platform rather than a method but I am interested in approaches to phonics.
Thanks for your question. My research will only consider e-books associated with systematic synthetics phonics programmes, as that is the approach the Government is committed to. When I started my literature review for TMA01 I found there was lots of research and an ongoing debate about whether it is the right approach. It’s a very interesting area of research but I had to be careful not to get lost down that rabbit hole and stick to my scope.
Synthetic phonics learnt through e-books is an interesting development shaping families in our times. A fascinating topic. It would be useful to understand how they are accessed. Frequency and duration of reading practice by families in the assessments are well considered. Would individual differences among the children also be a factor?
Thanks for your question Bina. You’re correct that there are likely to be differences in how much reading practise children do at home. Schools will make a recommendation/set an expectation but there is no guarantee that families will follow that and this can be an issue with print as well as e-books. I hope to gather insight into whether e-books leads to a difference in frequency/duration of engagement compared to print books through the parent surveys I will conduct.
Hi Kirsty.
Such a hot topic at the moment as we digitise learning more and more. What do you think the results will show? What are the differences in terms of affordances between the e-readers that the study participants use and physical books? Looking forward to your presentation.
Thanks for your question Phillip. My hypothesis is that there will be less parental support for e-book reading and that e-books will result in lower decoding scores than print books. In terms of the differences in affordances between the e-books and print, that will depend on the phonics programme and associated e-library that I select for the study. E-books do vary e.g. a basic e-book may just be an image of a print book whereas some may offer features such as text to speech, text highlighting, animation and sounds, quizzes etc (and the wider research tells me that not all features equate to benefits). An important early step in my project would be to select a phonics programme that is widely used, increasing my chances of finding sufficient participants, but also selecting a programme that is using e-books with features that might be considered typical.
Hi Kirsty
This sounds really interesting, I look forward to the presentation. There has always been debate about ebooks compared to physical copies but I never though about developmental factors too.
Another question I’d be interested in is do you feel that there is an impact in the loss of ability to trade books as well for children?
Hi Billy, When you say trade books, are you thinking about when a child has read their reading book they return it to school and change it for a new one and over time they move up the levels/colour bands? If so, this is a potential limitation of the phonics programmes more so than e-books i.e. the need to be only reading books containing sounds they have been taught meaning that the pace of going through the library of books is restricted. Re-reading books is a big part of the approach (whereas some children may be more motivated by being able to move on and read a new book). Putting the restrictions of the phonics programmes aside, some e-book libraries do offer incentives/rewards e.g. points, tokens for completed books.
Hi Kirsty, I’m sorry I missed your presentation but I’m hoping to be able to watch the recording. I haven’t taught in primary for two decades now but I’m still interested in topics such as this one.
Thanks Maria
Questions from conference
1. User 21: Does e-book require internet at home where many may not have access? Or is content added at school?
Answer – Thank you for the question. With the e-libraries I am familiar with, the children logged on at home to access the books. As there are a number of phonics schemes that offer e-books, some may offer the functionality to download and save to a device. However, in my school, that wouldn’t be practical for all as children don’t have home/school devices in the classroom and the age of the children (4-6 years) would mean adult support would be needed. However, it could be very useful in some cases e.g. a school loaned device with content downloaded for any families without a device and/or data.
2. User 7: If different schools used for research, would schools be questioned for commitment to print/e-book?
Answer: Thank you for your questions. Yes, this would be a consideration. Schools using a specific phonics scheme and therefore a particular library of decodable books (i.e. same library of books in print or e-book form) would be recruited. Before approaching schools, it’s likely that I’d be able to identify schools using the selected phonics scheme from the information published on their website and possibly even identify whether they send home print or e-books. There would have to be a discussion on whether they would be committed to their current format for the duration of the study as a school switching or deciding to offer both would be problematic for the study.
3. User 7: How are children who do not/cannot interact with screens included in the research?
Answer: Because the research would be looking to identify whether the use of e-books leads to a difference in reading scores compared to the same books in print version, the participants of the study would need to be following the standard phonics programme in their school and accessing the decodable books in the standard format for their school. The research itself won’t change anything for the pupils, which is the benefit of the quasi-experimental approach. If there are children who have specific support plans in place, the research won’t affect this. I need to do more research into how to manage the limitations of the quasi-experimental approach and the fact that participants are not randomly assigned to groups. The aim of the research will be to understand whether e-books make a difference to decoding scores and this would be just one consideration for a school if deciding whether to use print, e-books or a combination of the two.
4. User 7: Will research include non-phonic decoding aspects?
Answer: the research will utilise secondary data from the assessments conducted as part of a validated phonics programme so will focus on phonics e.g. assessments will include some pseudowords.
5. User 7: Enjoyment is key to learning. Does this negate findings if these books are boring?
Answer: Whether phonics is the best way to teach reading and the pros and cons of decodable books are both the subject of a lot of research. Both are very interesting areas but are beyond the scope of my project. Phonics programmes specify the titles of the decodable books that can be read in each week of the programme and, with some programmes, these titles are available in both print and e-book form. The study will look to see if there is a difference in reading scores in children using e-books compared to the same books in print form. Where decodable books might be considered to be dull e.g. in the early stages of the programme when the content/story is very limited due to the limited grapheme-phoneme correspondences the children have been taught, the same issue will apply to the print and e-books. Whether the features afforded by some e-books e.g. animation, could be beneficial in terms of increasing enjoyment is another interesting question but this is also not within the scope of this particular study.
6. User 22: It’s always difficult to align research in schools with the schedule of an OU degree. Will your data collection plan fit well with school time tables, holidays and events?
Answer – Thank you for your question. I would like to be able to collect data over the duration of the phonics programme (from when children start school in reception to the end of year 1) and will use the assessment data that the school is already collecting as well as collecting parent/carer insight at key assessment points. Because I am planning this with a part-time EdD in mind, I think the long period of data collection would be possible and I would plan the research to work around the timings of the school year.
7. User 14: This is based on the UK (English) education system, would there be scope after the research to roll out the approach to findings/recommendations outside the UK or would there need to be a different study?
Answer – Thank you for your question. The research will focus on a UK validated phonics programme using a particular library of books. The findings may be of interest to people in other countries if they are also using phonics and decodable books to teach early reading. However, how generalisable the findings are would also depend on the features of the e-books, which may vary by publisher (this also applies in terms of whether the findings can be generalised to other phonics schemes within the UK). For example, a basic e-book may just be an image of a print book whereas some may offer features such as text to speech, text highlighting, animation and sounds, quizzes etc.