Collen -Part 2
The Research Project
A private school in suburban Chicago agreed to allow its four-year–old preschool classes to participate in this research (written parental consent was obtained for all participating children, as well as verbal assent from the children just before the storytime sessions). The 32 children who participated in this study were randomly placed into two groups, creating groups of equal size (16 children in each). The children who participated in the study ranged in age from 49 to 62 months. The mean age of the first group was 57.18 months; the mean age for the second group was 56.87 months.
Two age–appropriate picture books from ICDL were chosen for this study; the same books were obtained from a library in hard-copy, print format. The two books were Axle the Freeway Cat )Harper and Row, 1981) and The Hunterman and the Crocodile: A West African Folktale (Scholastic, 1997). According to the preschool teachers, these books were not previously known to the children.
Axle is a realistic fantasy about a cat that makes a new friend. Axle and his friend, Little Cat, are the only characters in the book, and the plot is a simple one - with Axle fixing Little Cat's car when it breaks and causes a traffic jam. After Axle fixes the car, the two of them take a ride in Little Cat's fancy red car; they share dinner in Axle's home (a broken-down car); and, they play some music together.
On the other hand, Hunterman is far more complex and originates from a West African folktale. There are seven main characters, one secondary character, and one implied character - the hunterman's wife - who is never seen in the pictures. Some of the main characters travel from one location to another, and the end of the story presents a complete plot twist and introduces the implied character. Hunterman is full of assumptions and concerns that each character has about others (whom you can trust and why), and any understanding of the story arises from paying attention to the reciprocal help and hindrances that each character gives the others.
The group storytimes were conducted at the preschool in October 2004 on two separate days in the preschool's library. On each day, both groups of students heard one story, presented either in a digital or traditional format. The first day of the study consisted of two readings of Axle the Freeway Cat. On day two, The Hunterman and the Crocodile was read to the children. There were three teachers present during each of the storytimes on both days; however, the teachers were observers and not participants.
On each of the storytime days, I first conducted the digital storytime, and all of the technical equipment was set up and in place when the children entered the preschool's library. Once I completed the digital storytime, I removed the projection screen, laptop, and projector from the reading area, and I conducted the traditional storytimes without any of the technology from the digital storytimes in view of the children. All storytimes were videotaped with two video cameras in a fixed position. For the traditional storytimes, one video camera was behind me (conducting the storytime) and fixed to record the children; the other video camera was behind the children and was fixed to record me. For the digital storytimes, both video cameras were fixed on either side of the group to record both the children and me.
For the traditional storytimes, the children sat in a semicircle on the floor of the preschool's library, and I sat in a chair at the front of the semicircle, held the picture book with my left hand, and turned the pages with my right hand. I briefly introduced myself, asked the children whether they were ready to hear a story, and introduced the book. I also told the children that they would have time after the story to ask questions and talk about the book.
During the storytime, I faced the children; the picture book was open to each page as I read the story, and each page spread remained open and faced the children during the entire reading so all the children could see the pictures. I showed the children, in the following order, every component of the complete hard–copy book: front cover, front jacket flap, end-papers, front matter, the story, back matter, end papers, end-flap, and back cover. For each of the traditional storytimes, I read expressively and did not stop the reading to talk about the story. After I finished, the children and I discussed the story in detail.
For the digital storytimes, the children sat on the floor of the preschool's library facing a four-by-foury-foot projection screen. On a table at the back of the room (approximately twelve feet from the screen) were a laptop computer and a projector. Even though the books on ICDL can be used "live" off the Web site for digital storytimes, ICDL generously made a digital file available to me for each of the books, so that potential telecommunication line problems or ISP interruptions would not interfere with the research. The digital books on ICDL include every component of the hard–copy book; the children in the digital groups were shown the front cover, front jacket flap, end-papers, front matter, the story, back matter, end papers, end-flap, and back cover.
There are three different "book readers" available on ICDL: standard, comic book, and spiral. For the study, I used the comic book reader, which initially displays all pages for the picture book in sequential order, similar to a comic strip. When you click on a page in this format, the book is displayed as double-page spreads in exactly the same format as the hard-copy books (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: the comic book reader format.
