The effects of e-stories on preschoolers’ narrative comprehension, retelling and reading attitudes among poor and good comprehenders

Previous studies have presented discrepant findings of e-stories’ contribution to children’s narrative comprehension, which can be attributed to not only the variation of multimedia features among studies but also to learner and text features. The main goal of the present study was to expand understanding of the effect of e-stories on children’s narrative skills and reading attitudes for poor and good story comprehenders. A quasi-experimental factorial design was employed to explore the effect of book type and group level on children’s narrative skills and reading attitudes. The participating children were pre-readers. The printed version of The Red Winged Owl was read aloud to small groups of 4–5 children. Participants included 41 good and 40 poor comprehenders (age range 59–68 months) who were identified based on narrative comprehension scores. The experimental group was exposed to four e-stories on an iPad, while the control group listened to readings of the printed versions of the same storybooks. Data were collected by administering pre- and post-tests and the preschool reading attitudes scale and by asking narrative comprehension questions. Children’s retellings were audio-recorded. The findings revealed that (a) the poor and good comprehender groups had higher narrative comprehension in the short text e-story condition, (b) there was a significant interaction effect for the narrative comprehension of poor and good comprehenders in longer texts and (c) children’s post-reading attitude scores did not differ by group level.