Learning vocabulary from e-book reading and recorded word explanation for low-income elementary students with and without reading difficulties

Children from economically disadvantaged families have few opportunities to engage in shared storybook reading activities, and thus are disadvantaged in the area of vocabulary development. In today's classroom, many children's e-books provide audio narration support to facilitate comprehension for children with no adult support. Yet, in this digital age, we still know little about how to effectively use e-books to support these children. To rectify this gap, this study investigates the effects of e-book reading with audio narration and some recorded word explanation on the novel vocabulary learning of first grade students from low-achieving elementary schools (mean age = 6.5, SD = 0.50). Employing a within-subject design, students read two e-books and their performances on seven explained words were compared to the seven unexplained control words. As a whole, results indicated that recorded word explanation resulted in greater word learning than when word explanation was not provided. Additionally, e-book reading lead to incidental word learning, and three subgroups of readers showed different patterns of word learning across the e-book with and without the recorded word explanation and the control conditions. Findings suggest that children from low-income families can increase vocabulary from reading an e-book when a short recorded word explanation precedes the e-book reading activity.