Abstract
Access to a growing number of digital reading platforms containing large e-book collections is changing the landscape of independent reading in schools. This chapter provides an overview of digital reading programs and offers insight into available tools that can be used to evaluate digital book design, focusing on the structural qualities of e-book programs that may offer affordances to beginning readers beyond traditional print books. The authors discuss tools to evaluate digital reading programs at four levels: the program level, the book level, the individual screen page level, and the dashboard analytics offered in the program. In addition to best practice examples, the authors also offer guidance about how classroom teachers can use the tremendous efficiency of digital reading platforms to more actively promote the longstanding principle of learning by doing in the act of reading – helping students to focus on practicing the essential skills they need to read and to read with enjoyment.
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Appendix: e-Book Quality Rating Tool
Appendix: e-Book Quality Rating Tool
Category | Definition | Item | Criteria |
|---|---|---|---|
Ease of use | Features of access, page turning, browsing options | Home icon | Quick and easy access |
Coding guidance: Look for clarity; consistency; recognizability; simple form (may be termed cover or title page); | |||
Start/stop/pause button icons | Large, easy to select, student control | ||
Coding guidance: Look for clarity; consistency; recognizability; visual features (e.g., color); concreteness; simple form | |||
Previous/next button icons | Large, easy to select; allow student control | ||
Coding guidance: Look for clarity; consistency; recognizability; visual features (e.g., color); concreteness; simple form; manual control | |||
Reading mode button icons | Narration and non-narration options | ||
Coding guidance: Look for clarity; consistency; recognizability; visual features (e.g., color); concreteness; simple form; manual control | |||
Page numbers | Obvious on the screen page | ||
Coding guidance: Look for clarity; simple form, consistency | |||
Student control and mastery | Student-centered, responsive | ||
Coding guidance: Look for opportunity; meaningfulness; manageability | |||
User guidance | Navigation directions and cues | ||
Coding guidance: Look for clarity; concreteness; legibility; visual features (e.g., color) | |||
Multimedia | Features of font, text, graphics, audio, animation | Print font | Sufficiently large and age-appropriate |
Coding guidance: Look for visual features (size, shape, color) | |||
Text layout | Age appropriate, properly formatted, manageable amount of text | ||
Coding guidance: Look for text structure; complexity; amount; visual features (e.g., borders) | |||
Print highlighting | Highlighting options, word/phrase tracking, student control options | ||
Coding guidance: Look for chunking (word/phrase/sentence); color; manageability | |||
Text-graphics match | On screen text with on screen graphics alignment | ||
Coding guidance: Look for contiguity; simultaneity; graphics-text match; integration | |||
Music effects | Complementary, not distracting to text content; motivating | ||
Coding guidance: Look for melody, rhythm, tempo in harmony with story content; avoids extraneous sounds | |||
Audio narration | Appealing voice quality, prosody and pace | ||
Coding guidance: Look for age appropriate voice tone, pace, clear pronunciation | |||
Animations | Meaningful addition to the text content | ||
Coding guidance: Look for coherence; comprehensibility; manageability; distractibility; disruption; seductive features (misleading) | |||
Interaction | Button icons or hyperlinks that trigger an action or event | Text interactions | Meaningful reader-text interactions that support word recognition, comprehension and/or vocabulary |
Coding guidance: Look for visual features (supportive icons); complexity; redundancy (visual+audio); disruptions; distractions. | |||
Educational content interactions | Robust reader-text disciplinary content interactions | ||
Coding guidance: Look for subject matter referencing; vocabulary teaching; coaching; content extensions; worked examples | |||
Illustration interactions | Guided attention to details in illustrations that support comprehension | ||
Coding guidance: Look for text-illustration cues; text-illustration magnification; text-illustration referencing; virtual assistants. | |||
Embedded games or quizzes | Effective screen-page practice opportunities that support word identification, comprehension and vocabulary learning | ||
Coding guidance: Look for learner engagement; meaningful tasks that represent essential reading skills; retrieval supports; personalization | |||
Supplemental games or quizzes | Effective after reading practice opportunities that support essential reading skills. | ||
Coding guidance: Look for learner engagement; meaningful tasks that represent essential reading skills; retrieval supports; incentives; personalization |
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Brueck, J., Lenhart, L.A., Roskos, K.A. (2019). Digital Reading Programs: Definitions, Analytic Tools and Practice Examples. In: Kim, J.E., Hassinger-Das, B. (eds) Reading in the Digital Age: Young Children’s Experiences with E-books. Literacy Studies, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20077-0_8
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