Once Upon a Time: Parent-Child Dialogue and Storybook Reading in the Electronic Era

Early experiences with books predict later reading success, and an interactive shared reading style called dialogic reading is especially beneficial to emergent literacy. Electronic console (EC) books, CD-rom books, and e-book apps are designed to teach preschoolers preliteracy skills, but research has yet to systematically explore the impact of these types of books on established predictors of positive literacy outcomes. This research fills that gap with two studies investigating dialogic language and children's story comprehension in a total of 165 parent-child dyads reading battery-operated, touch-sensitive children's electronic console books or traditional books. Results revealed that parent-child dialogic reading and children's story comprehension were both negatively affected by the presence of electronic features. Ways in which e-books may be altered to better serve as educational tools in this new era are discussed.