Comparison of effectiveness of two mobile application designs for encouraging children to read
Article No.: 38, Pages 1 - 6
Abstract
Many South Africans are functionally illiterate, which impacts adversely on their further education and job prospects. As literacy deficits begin in primary school, it is vitally important to improve reading engagement in children aged 6 to 13 years.
In this study, we explored the use of mobile applications to improve children's engagement with, and enjoyment of, reading. Two alternative approaches were prototyped: the StoryMaker tablet application allows children to create a digital story book incorporating characters from the popular Nal'ibali reading-for-enjoyment supplements, while the StoryGame application uses a less traditional gamification approach, where the user directs a character through a story by solving word problems.
The applications were tested on groups of children aged 10 to 12. While both applications met with enthusiasm, the children reported that the StoryGame application encouraged them to read more, while they would prefer to play with the StoryMaker application. The long-term benefits of these applications are still to be established, but this pilot study should inform the design of future applications to encourage reading in children.
References
[1]
Modisaotsile, B. M. 2012. The failing standard of basic education in South Africa. AISA Policy Brief, 72:1--7.
[2]
Mullis, I. V., Martin, M. O., Foy, P., & Drucker, K. T. 2012. PIRLS 2011 International Results in Reading. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Herengracht 487, Amsterdam, 1017 BT, The Netherlands
[3]
Pretorius, S. SA's real level of literacy. The Citizen, 29 August 2013. Retrieved from: http://citizen.co.za/31407/literatez/ on 16 June 2015.
[4]
Spaull, N. South Africa's education crisis: The quality of education in South Africa 1994-2011. Centre for Development & Enterprise. Retrieved from: http://www.section27.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Spaull-2013-CDE-report-South-Africas-Education-Crisis.pdf Retrieved on: 16 June 2015
[5]
PRAESA. Nal'ibali national reading-for-enjoyment campaign. Retrieved from: http://www.praesa.org.za/nalibali-national-reading-for-enjoyment/ Retrieved on: 16 June 2015
[6]
Kell, C. 2013. Nal'ibali reading for enjoyment campaign: Briefing no. 1: Stories in people's lives: A snapshot from Rawsonville, Western Cape. Retrieved from: http://www.praesa.org.za/files/2013/05/Rawsonville-Research-Report.pdf Retrieved on: 16 June 2015.
[7]
Kell, C. and Xhalisa, T. 2013. Nal'ibali reading for enjoyment campaign: Briefing no. 2: Stories in people's lives: A snapshot from Langa, Western Cape. Retrieved from: http://www.praesa.org.za/files/2013/05/Langa-Research-Report1.pdf Retrieved on: 16 June 2015.
[8]
Kalb, G., & Van Ours, J. C. 2014. Reading to young children: A head-start in life? Economics of Education Review, 40, 1--24.
[9]
Fogg, B. J. 2002. Persuasive technology: Using computers to change what we think and do. Morgan Kaufmann; 1st edition (December 30, 2002)
[10]
Pollak, J. P., Gay, G., Byrne, S., Wagner, E., Retelny, D and Humphreys, L. 2010. It's time to eat! Using mobile games to promote healthy eating. Pervasive Computing, IEEE, 9:21--27.
[11]
Attewell, J. and Savill-Smith, C. Mobile learning and social inclusion: focusing on learners and learning. In Learning with mobile devices: Research and development, 3-8. London: Learning Skills and Development Agency.
[12]
Kothari, B., and Bandyopadhyay, T. 2014. Same language subtitling of Bollywood alm songs on TV: Effects on literacy. Information Technologies & International Development, 10(4), 31--47.
[13]
Kam, M., Kumar, A., Jain, S., Mathur, A. & Canny, J. Improving literacy in rural India: Cellphone games in an after-school program. Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD), 2009 International Conference on, vol., no., pp. 139--149
[14]
Gee, J. P. 2003. What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Computer Entertainment. 1, 1.
[15]
Paras, B. and Bizzocchi, J. 2005. Game, motivation and effective learning: An integrated model for education game design. In Proceedings of DiGRA 2005 Conference: Changing Views -- Worlds in Play. (June 16-20, 2005, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada).
[16]
Csikszentmihalyi, M and Rathunde, K. 1992. The measurement of flow in everyday life: toward a theory of emergent motivation. Nebr Symp Motiv. 40:57--97.
[17]
Cook, G. 2000. Language play, language learning. Oxford University Press.
[18]
Frost, J.L., Wortham, S.C., Reifel, R.S. 2008. Play and child development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.
[19]
Moore, S. R. 1995. Questions for research into reading-writing relationships and text structure knowledge. Language Arts, 72(8), 598--606.
[20]
Keller, J. M. Motivational design of instruction, In C.M. Reigeluth (Ed.). "Instructional design theories and models: An overview of their current status," Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1983.
[21]
Sim, G., McFarlane, S. & Read, J. 2006. All work and no play: Measuring fun, usability and learning in software for children. Computers & Education, 46, 235--248.
Recommendations
The use of mobile phones to support children's literacy learning
PERSUASIVE'07: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Persuasive technologyThe goal of this study was to develop a mobile-phone based intervention that would encourage parents to engage their children in daily literacy-learning activities. The intervention content included text messages for parents, audio messages for parents ...
Engaging young children in visual literacy instruction
ASIST '16: Proceedings of the 79th ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Creating Knowledge, Enhancing Lives through Information & TechnologyVisual literacy is a critical skill that enables individuals to navigate the world of visual media. While research shows multiple benefits of introducing visual literacy early in life, there is a scarcity of visual literacy programs for young children. ...
Digital transformation to support literacy teaching to deaf Children: From storytelling to digital interactive storytelling
Highlights- Interactive storytelling is a great way to engage children into literacy learning.
AbstractCurrently, learning technologies are transforming and modifying educational systems with impressive progress of Information and Communication Technologies. Furthermore, when these technologies are available, accessible, usable and ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
September 2015
423 pages
ISBN:9781450336833
DOI:10.1145/2815782
Copyright © 2015 ACM.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 28 September 2015
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
- Research
- Refereed limited
Conference
SAICSIT '15
SAICSIT '15: The 2015 Annual Research Conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists
September 28 - 30, 2015
Stellenbosch, South Africa
Acceptance Rates
SAICSIT '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 43 of 119 submissions, 36%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 187 of 439 submissions, 43%
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 178Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)5
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 14 Jan 2025
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in