Choose Your Own Adventure: Interactive E‐Books to Improve Word Knowledge and Comprehension Skills

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background The affordances of technology, such as e‐books, offer the opportunity to increase engagement and provide personalised feedback to promote students' learning outcomes. E‐books that encourage the use of comprehension monitoring strategies in real time may support stronger outcomes. Objectives The purpose of this feasibility study was to examine the potential impact of reading digital interactive e‐books, Word Knowledge E‐Books (WKe‐Books), that taught word‐meaning and deeper text‐meaning strategies to support reading comprehension with third‐fifth grade students. Methods Students ( N = 435) read two WKe‐Books, that taught word learning and comprehension monitoring strategies in the service of learning vocabulary and targeted science concepts about hurricanes. We investigated whether specific comprehension strategies–(1) word learning and strategies that supported general reading comprehension, (2) summarisation, and (3) question generation–show promise of effectiveness in building vocabulary knowledge and comprehension skills in the WKe‐Books. Students were assigned to read one of three versions of each WKe‐Book. The books employed a choose‐your‐adventure format with embedded comprehension questions that provided students with immediate feedback. Results and Conclusions Students demonstrated significant gains in word learning and the targeted hurricane concepts. Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) revealed that no one strategy was associated with larger gains. Performance on the embedded questions in the books was associated with greater posttest outcomes. These findings suggest that the affordances offered in the WKe‐Books can effectively support students' development of reading‐related skills, including strategy use. Further, this work discusses implications for the future development of e‐books that can enhance engagement and improve reading comprehension.

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