We often talk about our narrative experiences with others. For example, we might talk about the latest TV show or book in a series with friends. How does the media of a narrative (text, picture story) affect how we talk about it? Despite the fact that narratives can be experienced across different media, few studies have addressed the impacts of…

Background: "Screen inferiority" refers to a well-established phenomenon observed among adults and teenagers, wherein they demonstrate higher reading comprehension when reading from paper compared to screens. However, there is limited research focusing on readers in the initial stages of reading development. The current study aims to…

Colour, a visual element of art and design, is a semiotic mode that is used strategically by sign-makers to communicate meaning. Understanding the meaning-making potential of colour can enhance students' understanding, appreciation, interpretation and composition of multimodal texts. This article features a case study of Anya, an 11-year-old…

With the introduction of more standardized multimedia file formats, the text has more potential than ever to provide a really robust experience, with the best products moving from discrete narrative literature to something altogether new and well beyond the page. A work is no longer confined to a single definitive version, as the reader can follow…

The use of electronic reading devices has proliferated in the last few years. These reading devices appear to be particularly popular with young readers. A generation of students that has grown up with computers, cell phones, iPods, and other high-tech devices is more likely to embrace electronic book technology for both their educational and…

The purpose of this study was to examine children's reading engagement and communicative initiations when they were read storybooks in varying media and reading manners, with a focus on understanding the way electronic storybooks (e-storybooks) may affect young children's shared reading experiences. The reading behaviors of 25 preschool-aged…

Describes a study in London, Ontario, in which preschool children heard two 10-sentence stories which were accompanied by two pictures of sentence's subject and object, a picture of sentence's subject, a picture of sentence's object, or no pictures. Only the two-picture illustration produced significantly better learning relative to no-picture…

An adult read to 12 children from a regular paper book. Twenty-four children explored a similar electronic book. For half of this group, the electronic book was with and for half without restrictions on games. Regular book format was more supportive of learning story content and phrasing; both formats supported internalization of features of…

This study examined the factors that contribute to learners' perceptions of the ease or difficulty of learning a specific task using a specific medium were studied, specifically whether the preconceptions of preservice teachers vary by learning domain (verbal, intellectual, affective, and psychomotor) or medium of presentation (interactive video,…