Young children’s buddy reading with multimodal app books: reading patterns and characteristics of readers, texts, and contexts

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study investigated 27 US and 28 Turkish dyads of children between 4 and 6 years old who read 12 app books across a school year. Emergent coding and constant comparison were used to identify reading patterns in which the dyads engaged: hotspot-centric, text-centric, and integrated. Then we examined how characteristics of readers (socio-economic status, language, and gender), text (animations, navigation features, and typographical cues), and context (social interaction styles) were related to these reading patterns. Children read differently in their native versus a foreign language, and social interaction styles played a role in how reading patterns changed over time. Integrated reading, navigating sequentially through the app book, and collaborative social interactions were related to deeper meaning-making and the use of more effective reading patterns over time. Implications include how to model and scaffold app book reading practices, select texts for instruction, and design app books with features that have been shown to be effective.

KEYWORDS:

• Buddy reading
• app books
• digital books
• early childhood
• literacy

Acknowledgements

We thank the children and teachers for their time and participation. Thanks to K. Andrews, C. Aoki, N. Kazemi Zadeh Gol, D. Kitson, and Elif Özge Erkal for data collection assistance, and N. Kazemi Zadeh Gol and P. Li for the their assistance in coding of these data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Tanya Christ is a reading and language arts professor at Oakland University. She studies early childhood literacy processes and learning related to vocabulary, comprehension, and reading with multimodal texts.

Dr. X. Christine Wang is an early childhood professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She studies young children’s learning with technology, vocabulary and science learning, and epistemology.

Dr. Ersoy Erdemir is an early childhood professor at Bogazici University in Turkey. He studies young children’s language and literacy learning, and focuses primarily on children who are learning in a foreign language, including Turkish children learning in English and Syrian refugees learning in Turkish.

Additional information

Funding

The project is supported by research grants from Spencer Foundation, Elva Knight Research Grant from the International Literacy Association, and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK).