Learning new words from an interactive electronic storybook intervention.
Daleen Klop, Laurette Marais, Amanda Msindwana and 1 others
PMID 30326711WHAT IT FOUND
Grade 1 children learned new words and kept them for 8 weeks after using an interactive e-book for two hours total.
The control group also improved once they used the e-book. This shows short, independent digital exposure can build vocabulary in low-resource settings.
Key findings
01Children who used the e-book scored significantly higher on vocabulary tests than those who did not, and they retained these gains eight weeks later.
02The control group, who had not yet used the e-book, showed similar improvements in their scores after they were given the intervention.
03The intervention required only two hours of total exposure over two weeks, with children working independently on tablets.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used only one specific e-book designed for this project, so results may not generalize to commercially available e-books or other digital tools. There were no standardized language tests available for isiXhosa, so researchers created custom assessment tasks which may not have the same validity or reliability as established tools. The study was conducted in a specific low-income, rural context with overcrowded classrooms, which may limit applicability to other settings. The control group did not receive a retention follow-up, so we do not know if their gains lasted as long as the experimental group's.
Declared interests
The study was approved by the CSIR Ethics Committee. The text does not explicitly state funding sources or commercial conflicts of interest, but the e-book was developed by the first author and implemented as a mobile application.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that any commercially available e-book will produce these results. The intervention used a specifically designed application with controlled word frequency and interactive activities tailored to the target vocabulary, which is distinct from general entertainment-focused e-books.