This article reports on an exploratory study on developing and adopting a 'Virtual Go Mode' feature embedded in a mobile vocabulary learning app, VocabGo, to enhance students' vocabulary learning engagement. Distinguished from other virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) applications, the Virtual Go Mode is designed for students to…

Language-minority students constitute a heterogeneous group, both in terms of skills in the majority language and contextual factors, such as language use at home and socioeconomic status. These characteristics may interact with the effectiveness of language instruction programs. This study investigated whether the effectiveness of a digital…

Many studies have demonstrated the crucial role of vocabulary in predicting reading performance in general. More recent work has indicated that one particular facet of vocabulary (its depth) is more closely related to language comprehension, especially inferential comprehension. On this basis, we developed a training application to specifically…

To understand young children's experience with multimodal digital texts, we investigated how 53 kindergarteners' (ages 5-6) buddy reading behaviors (reading mode selection, sequential/non-sequential reading, hotspot use, use of modalities, use of monitoring) were related to their individual comprehension outcomes (prompted retelling,…

Kindergarten teachers use a variety of strategies that focus on vocabulary development. A common and effective practice to introduce new vocabulary to kindergarteners is reading storybooks to children, what is commonly known as "read-alouds" (Bus, van Ijzendoorn, & Pelligrini, 1995; Christ & Wang, 2010; Newton, Padak &…