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For Young Readers, Print or Digital Books?

May 29, 2012 | 6:00 AM | By

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Print or digital? Adults grapple with which is the best way to read — not only for themselves, but especially when it comes to their kids. Whether or not parents prefer print books over interactive e-books for their kids, the question is, what’s actually better for them?

Depends on what you’re trying to achieve. According to a study of a small group of parents released today by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, kids age 3 to 6 remembered more narrative details — “What happened in the story?” — from print books than from enhanced e-books with multimedia features.

But when kids were asked one plot question for each story, (i.e., “Why did x do y?”), there was no difference between the print book readers and the enhanced e-book readers.

“I would definitely make the distinction that the platform affected recall instead of comprehension,” said Cynthia Chiong, the lead author of the survey conducted at New York Hall of Science’s Preschool Place.

The study, the first of its kind to qualify the difference between basic and enhanced e-readers versus print books, examined 32 pairs of parents and their 3–6-year-old children as they read a print book and an e-book together. Half of the pairs read a basic e-book and the other half read an enhanced e-book.

“Now it’s time to start thinking more purposefully and thoughtfully into what goes into the creation of an e-book.”

Researchers found that while the multimedia features of enhanced e-books grabbed children’s attention, those same features also distracted young readers and led more to “non-content related interactions.” Features like animation, sound effects, videos, and games made it more difficult for some parents to keep kids focused on reading and diminished kids’ recall of the text. Parents continually had to tell kids not to turn the page or not to touch the tablets, according to Chiong.

The implication? Parents and teachers should choose basic e-books like the Kindle or Nook over enhanced e-books, such as the iPad, if they want a more literacy-focused co-reading experience with children. Prompting kids with questions that relate to the text, labeling and naming objects, and encouraging kids to talk about the book’s content from their own perspective all elicit Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, Research, Teaching With Tech, e-books, e-readers, iPad, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, kindle, Nook

E-Readers Help Spread Literacy, No Apps Needed

November 1, 2011 | 10:08 AM | By

Worldreader

We often talk about the power of the Internet to spread knowledge and information globally, to make digital content accessible and affordable. But as we’re also often caught up in the “latest and greatest” gadgetry, sometimes we overlook that broad promise of global education and accessibility.

Such is the case, one might argue, with the news last week from Common Sense Media about the so-called “app gap” — the disparity between children in low-income and higher income families and their access to mobile applications.

There’s little denying that the popularity of mobile devices — Androids and iPhones and tablets — has afforded a concurrent explosion in exciting new educational apps. The touchscreen screens, the accelerometers, the size, and the portability of these devices has enabled whole new genres of software and of imaginative and educational gameplay.

But if we focus on the “app gap” — those who have iPads and those who do not — are we ignoring or obscuring other aspects of the digital divide? Are we overlooking the potential for widespread Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Teaching With Tech, e-readers, iPad, kindle, Worldreader

5 Reasons E-Books Are Awesome – Even for the Most Reluctant

October 28, 2011 | 10:14 AM | By

Flickr: tapiolankirjasto

Print books will always have a place in our lives, but e-books can come in handy, too.

By Jenny Shank

When Amazon first introduced the Kindle in 2007, I had no desire to own one. I was happy with regular papery books. When the iPad went on sale in 2010, it was harder for me to resist.

I’ve been using Macs, and Macs only, since I was a 6-year-old trying to ford a river in the game Oregon Trail on my school’s Apple II. I bought an iPad within a few months of its release, and I find it as loveable and gee-whiz-cool as every other Apple product has been. Still, old habits die hard. When I hit the couch at the end of the day to read, it’s usually with an old-fashioned book.

E-books have nothing on regular books for reading in the bathtub, in the rain while you’re pushing your kid on the playground swing, and with your toddler in the rocking chair so he can learn to use his chubby fingers to turn the page, not to mention enjoy books with pop-ups, cut-outs, and other surprises. Regular books autographed by a favorite author make a perfect souvenir of an enjoyable

There are some books that I maybe don’t need to own a printed copy of.

night out at the bookstore. I write all over my books, make notes in the margins, and star and underline things. Ideas for my own writing come to me while I’m reading, and I scrawl these in the back blank pages of novels. Still, I have to admit that e-books are better than paper books in some situations. Here are five reasons I’ve switched to e-books, some of the time:

1. E-BOOKS ARE HELPFUL TO PARENTS.

Becoming a parent did not decrease my desire to read, but it did reduce the amount of time available for reading. I have to be creative about sneaking in reading, and the iPad has helped on several occasions. For example, on a recent vacation, my husband and two kids and I were staying together in one hotel room, and the only way to get the kids to go to bed at a reasonable hour was Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Teaching With Tech, digital textbooks, iPad, kindle

Can Interactive Books Get Kids to Read More?

June 20, 2011 | 10:31 AM | By

Booksurfers is a new e-book adventure series aimed at children age 9 to 12. In a lot of ways, it fits squarely within the long tradition of children’s adventure stories: a group of kids is thrust into a strange scenario where they must use their wits to solve a problem, where they travel to strange and exotic locations to battle evil forces. But Booksurfers takes these generic conventions and gives them a very contemporary twist.

The four kid characters in Booksurfers — Ryan, Jake, Becca and Harriet — use a digital gadget called The Nautilus in order to”jump into” classic adventure stories in order to steal fictional artifacts. The evil Dr. Crookshanks compels them to do so, and he’s taken their parents hostage in order to force the kids’ cooperation.

For those familiar with Mary Pope Osborne’s popular Magic Tree House series, the notion of traveling back in time or into magic lands may sound quite familiar, and as I read through one of the two available titles — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — I was reminded of how much my son loved that series when he was first learning to read chapter books.

That’s the aim, in part, of the Booksurfers series: pique children’s interest in reading, and specifically in reading classic works of fiction (the two available titles so far are The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Treasure Island). Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Teaching With Tech, Booksurfers, e-readers, kindle

What Do Teenagers Think About E-Books? Not Much.

November 4, 2010 | 12:04 PM | By

Flickr:CarbonNYC

Would you trade your textbooks for e-books, asks the New York Times Learning Network of students 13 years or older.

The responses are all over the map depending on whether they’re reading for school or for pleasure. Anecdotal quotes like those below are predominantly against e-readers, from what seems to be kids who haven’t had much experience with the gadgets.

As I’ve said before about college students preferring print over digital, I think it goes back to a person’s formative experience when it comes to reading. If you grew up reading print books, which most of us have, we’ll tend to stick to what we know unless we’re early adopters of new technologies. A print book only requires opening, reading, and bookmarking with a folded edge. E-readers have a learning curve that requires some time to adjust. But kids learning to read today on e-readers and educational apps will have a different answer to this question than those below.

Here are those who prefer to stick to print:

  • “I like the idea of using an iPad, but I think kids will find a way to play around with it and they won’t focus on their work. E-books will change education, but in some ways for the worse.”
  • “Digital books can be helpful at times, but they also hurt your eyes after awhile, like looking at a computer screen too long. I’d rather be turning the pages and using sticky notes to make notes, none of which you can do on a digital book.” Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: digital textbooks, iPad, kindle

Why Today’s College Kids Prefer Print – And Tomorrow’s Won’t

October 21, 2010 | 12:45 PM | By

Will Hutton

For all this talk of iPads and Kindles and e-readers and digital textbooks, apparently college students aren’t ready to give up their back-breaking tomes just yet.

At least that’s what yesterday’s New York Times article indicates. Despite the fact that in most cases, print books are more expensive, college kids surveyed in two studies said they “prefer a bound book to a digital one.”

“Students grew up learning from print books,” said Nicole Allen, the textbooks campaign director for the research groups, “so as they transition to higher education, it’s not surprising that they carry a preference for a format that they are most accustomed to.”

And I think that’s the revelatory part of the quote: “grew up learning from print books.” When today’s college kids began reading, say around 1998 (assuming they’re 18 years old now and were 6 when they started reading), there were no iPads or Kindles or Nooks. We only had books, brick-and-mortar bookstores, and libraries. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: digital textbooks, Higher Education, kindle