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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:
Parents and pre-school children have a more positive interaction when sharing a reading experience with a traditional book as opposed to an electronic book or e-book, according researchers at Temple University's Infant Laboratory and Erikson Institute in Chicago.
This shared positive experience from traditional books characteristically promotes early literacy skills.
The researchers presented the findings of their study, "Electronic books: Boon or Bust for Interactive Reading?"
The first-of-its-kind study was conducted by Julia Parish-Morris, a graduate student in developmental psychology at Temple University, and Molly F. Collins, assistant professor at Erikson Institute.
Parish-Morris and Collins collaborated with Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, the Lefkowitz Professor of Psychology and director of the Temple Infant Lab.
"It is very obvious from the media, from toy stores and bookstores that electronic learning products are becoming very, very popular," said Parish-Morris.
Parish-Morris said the researchers were looking at four different questions: do children prefer to electronic or traditional books in the context of parent-child interaction, does the content of parental utterances differ between the types of books, is the context of what parents are saying content- or behavior-oriented, and do parent's comments go beyond the book's story.
"I was struck by the stark difference between the content-related utterances in reading traditional versus e-books; I didn't realize there would be a two-fold difference," said Collins.
"Parents were under the impression that when you are sitting down with a book, you are supposed to read it," she added.
"But what was happening with the e-books is that reading was not even part of the process, probably because these books literally read the story to the child.
"In the later school years, kids enjoy school more, they enjoy learning more and there are a whole host of outcomes that are related to this shared reading experience in the pre-school years.
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Posted on November 13, 2006 01:15 AM
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