Knowledge Resource Bank

E-Storybooks

Boost second language development: Explore how animated e-storybooks with visuals and sound boost Mandarin language acquisition in preschoolers.

Animated Electronic Storybook and Preschoolers’ Mandarin Language Development

How Can Findings From E-Storybooks Help Your Students­?

The E-Storybooks research revealed that:

  • the enhanced digital books (with motion, camera movements, and sound) could facilitate children’s emergent language development, as compared to books that are accompanied by sound and narration, or narration only;
  • such a reading format might be useful for child bilingual learners to acquire Mandarin;
  • under the animated eBook condition, children appear to have improved productive vocabulary, context integration, and visual attention as well as improving story-retelling.

    Why E-Storybooks?

     

    Storybook reading is one of the most effective approaches for children to acquire new words and learn grammar in a meaningful context. However, for children who are beginning to learn a second language, they may benefit less from reading activities due to a lack in skills to do so. E-Storybooks (or eBooks) appear to be promising for them as such books may stimulate them in their different senses. This, in turn, could help them to understand a story as it is read aloud and accompanied with animation.

    Against the backdrop of a multilingual society in Singapore with four official languages, such e-books could potentially be helpful. The number of electronic books borrowed by children from the Singapore National Library Board has increased over the years as such a format is favoured for its engaging elements. However, there has been a lack of research on how these eBooks may influence bilingual children’s language learning and whether children could ultimately benefit from exposure to them.

     


    How Was the Research Carried Out?

     

    E-Storybooks explores the effectiveness of using animated e-storybooks on preschoolers’ Chinese language development and acquisition. It compares children’s vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension in four conditions:

    1. animated stories with motion and sound;
    2. corresponding static stories, with sound and softcopy printed illustrations;
    3. corresponding static stories with softcopy illustration only;
    4. a control condition (no reading exposure)

     

    Eye tracking was also used to measure visual attention.

    The animated and static eBooks were the same as those used in another study but Chinese language was the language studied. The three prize-winning children’s stories are – Little Kangaroo (Genechten, 2007), Cycling With Grandpa (Boonen, 2004) and Imitators (Veldkamp, 2006).

    Besides eye-tracking as mentioned above, demographic surveys, language proficiency tests, cognitive skills were also used to investigate the study.

    Learn more about the research methodology:
    Motion and Sound in Animated Storybooks for Preschoolers’ Visual Attention and Mandarin Language Learning: An Eye-Tracking Study with Bilingual Children

     


    Question-Icon Evidence from E-Storybooks

     

    Children exposed to the animated e-storybooks performed better than the other children in this study in the following aspects:

    • having longer attention span on the story: this may suggest deeper processing of details in the story, which might lead to better learning results.
    • children were asked to complete a sentence with the target word missing while seeing its related illustration on the screen. More target words were produced by children exposed to animated e-storybooks, indicating as well that these children could better remember these words than their peers.
    • when the children retold the three stories using still pictures of the stories, more details were also produced by these children than their peers.

     


    What Does This Mean for Teaching and Learning?

     

    • Animated eBooks have been found to be beneficial to children’s Mandarin language learning compared to static versions
    • eBook developers, parents, educators and policymakers should be aware of this as they select relevant materials for young children’s reading so as to promote their early mother tongue language learning.
    • A list of e-book recommendations can be downloaded from this site for sharing with educators and parents.

     


    Question-Icon Related Links

    Question-Icon Further Readings

     

    For educators interested in the research methodology behind the use of animated E-storybooks for Mandarin language learning, you may refer to:


    Question-Icon Research Project

     


    Question-Icon Research Team

     

    To learn more about this research, please contact the Principal Investigator, Dr Sabrina SUN He at he.sun@nie.edu.sg .

    Principal Investigator

    Dr Sabrina SUN He, Centre for Research in Child Development (CRCD), Office of Education Research (OER), NIE

    Co-Principal Investigators

        • Dr O’BRIEN Beth Ann, Head, Early and Middle Childhood Research – CRCD, OER, NIE
        • Prof Adriana Gerarda BUS, University of Leiden

         

        Collaborators

        • Prof Kerry LEE, formerly of NIE
        • Dr Roberto SANTIAGO de Roock, formerly of NIE
        • Prof CHEUNG Wai Leung Mike, National University of Singapore (NUS)
        • A/P CHEONG Siew Ann, Nanyang Technological University (NTU)

         

        Research Assistant

        • Ms Yvonne MOH Cui Yun, CRCD, NIE
        • Ms LOH Jie Ying, CRCD, NIE

         


          Acknowledgments

          E-Storybooks (Animated Electronic Storybook and Children’s Mother Tongue Development: Tracing the Process and the Outcome with Eyetracking) was funded by the Education Research Funding Programme, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (project no. OER 13/16 HS). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Singapore MOE and NIE.

          This knowledge resource was written by Ms Lorraine Ow and Ms Shruthilaya Ramachandran with edits and approval from Dr Sabrina Sun He as of 17 June 2021; updated by Ms Monica Lim on 1 July 2022.

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