  The purpose of this feasibility study was to examine the potential impact of
reading digital interactive e-books on essential skills that support reading
comprehension with third-fifth grade students. Students read two e-Books that
taught word learning and comprehension monitoring strategies in the service of
learning difficult vocabulary and targeted science concepts about hurricanes.
We investigated whether specific comprehension strategies including word
learning and strategies that supported general reading comprehension,
summarization, and question generation, show promise of effectiveness in
building vocabulary knowledge and comprehension skills in the e-Books. Students
were assigned to read one of three versions of each of the e-Books, each
version implemented one strategy. The books employed a choose-your-adventure
format with embedded comprehension questions that provided students with
immediate feedback on their responses. Paired samples t-tests were run to
examine pre-to-post differences in learning the targeted vocabulary and science
concepts taught in both e-Books. For both e-Books, students demonstrated
significant gains in word learning and on the targeted hurricane concepts.
Additionally, Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) revealed that no one strategy
was more associated with larger gains than the other. Performance on the
embedded questions in the books was also associated with greater posttest
outcomes for both e-Books. This work discusses important considerations for
implementation and future development of e-books that can enhance student
engagement and improve reading comprehension.
