Young children’s buddy reading with multimodal app books: reading patterns and characteristics of readers, texts, and contexts

This qualitative study investigated 27 US and 28 Turkish dyads of children between 4 and 6 years old who read 12 app books across a school year. Emergent coding and constant comparison were used to identify reading patterns in which the dyads engaged: hotspot-centric, text-centric, and integrated. Then we examined how characteristics of readers (socio-economic status, language, and gender), text (animations, navigation features, and typographical cues), and context (social interaction styles) were related to these reading patterns. Children read differently in their native versus a foreign language, and social interaction styles played a role in how reading patterns changed over time. Integrated reading, navigating sequentially through the app book, and collaborative social interactions were related to deeper meaning-making and the use of more effective reading patterns over time. Implications include how to model and scaffold app book reading practices, select texts for instruction, and design app books with features that have been shown to be effective.

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309305459 Young children’s buddy reading with multimodal app books: reading patterns and characteristics of readers, texts, and contexts Article in Early Child Development and Care · October 2016 DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2016.1241776 CITATIONS READS 0 92 3 authors, including: Tanya Christ Oakland University 33 PUBLICATIONS 99 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE All content following this page was uploaded by Tanya Christ on 22 October 2016. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately. Early Child Development and Care ISSN: 0300-4430 (Print) 1476-8275 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gecd20 Young children’s buddy reading with multimodal app books: reading patterns and characteristics of readers, texts, and contexts Tanya Christ, X. Christine Wang & Ersoy Erdemir To cite this article: Tanya Christ, X. Christine Wang & Ersoy Erdemir (2016): Young children’s buddy reading with multimodal app books: reading patterns and characteristics of readers, texts, and contexts, Early Child Development and Care, DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2016.1241776 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1241776 Published online: 19 Oct 2016. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=gecd20 Download by: [Tanya Christ] Date: 19 October 2016, At: 07:44 EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1241776 Young children’s buddy reading with multimodal app books: reading patterns and characteristics of readers, texts, and contexts Tanya Christa, X. Christine Wangb and Ersoy Erdemirc a Reading and Language Arts, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA; bLearning and Instruction, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA; cEarly Childhood Education, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY This qualitative study investigated 27 US and 28 Turkish dyads of children between 4 and 6 years old who read 12 app books across a school year. Emergent coding and constant comparison were used to identify reading patterns in which the dyads engaged: hotspot-centric, textcentric, and integrated. Then we examined how characteristics of readers (socio-economic status, language, and gender), text (animations, navigation features, and typographical cues), and context (social interaction styles) were related to these reading patterns. Children read differently in their native versus a foreign language, and social interaction styles played a role in how reading patterns changed over time. Integrated reading, navigating sequentially through the app book, and collaborative social interactions were related to deeper meaningmaking and the use of more effective reading patterns over time. Implications include how to model and scaffold app book reading practices, select texts for instruction, and design app books with features that have been shown to be effective. Received 30 August 2016 Accepted 23 September 2016 KEYWORDS Buddy reading; app books; digital books; early childhood; literacy Introduction We live in an ever increasingly digital society. In 2006, 10–20% of 3–6-year-olds read app books for 36–47 minutes daily (Vandewater, Bickham, & Lee, 2006), and this number is likely rising given that digital media available for preschoolers has recently increased by 58% (Shuler, 2012). App books are also increasingly used in schools (Haselton, 2013). However, we know little about young children’s app book reading patterns, or how the characteristics of readers (e.g. socio-economic status (SES) and linguistic background), texts (e.g. language and digital affordances available for meaningmaking), and contexts (group, school, etc.) are associated with these patterns. To address the research gap, our study aims to investigate the reading patterns of emergent readers who are not yet conventionally decoding words in the text as they engage with app books, as well as how the characteristics of readers, texts, and contexts are related to these reading patterns. This research is important for four reasons. First, reading app books is not the same process as reading traditional texts. It involves the use and interpretation of multiple modes (e.g. images, sounds, and movement) that can be used in diverse pathways (Kress, 2010; Wolfe & Flewitt, 2010). Also, young children often do not intuitively use digital features to navigate and make meaning with digital books (de Jong & Bus, 2003, 2004; Lefever-Davis & Pearman, 2005). This makes it essential to understand how young children use digital features to help them make meaning. Second, many school populations are becoming more linguistically and socio-economically diverse (Turkish Statistical Institute, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2014; Yağmur, 2001). This means that it is important CONTACT Tanya Christ christ@oakland.edu Oakland University, 2200 N. Squirrel Rd., Rochester, MI 48309, USA © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 2 T. CHRIST ET AL. to understand whether and how readers with different backgrounds may use different reading patterns with app books. Third, the quality of app books and the symbols used to depict functions vary across books, which requires readers to learn how functions operate in a given text (Javorsky & Trainin, 2014). Thus, it is important to understand the affordances of app books and how they are associated with reading patterns. Finally, the social context of buddy reading potentially facilitates higher quality engagement with app books and changes in reading patterns over time through modelling and scaffolding (Christ & Wang, 2012; Christ, Wang, & Chiu, 2014; Javorsky & Trainin, 2014). However, research about how this social context is associated with children’s app book reading patterns is lacking. Theoretical framework Three theoretical perspectives inform our research. While transactional theory of reading (Rosenblatt, 2005) provides an overarching framework for the meaning-making with texts that occurs in this study, multimodal literacy theories (Kress, 2010; Wolfe & Flewitt, 2010) and sociocultural theories (Cole & Wertsch, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978) inform our understandings of multimodal texts and the social context of buddy reading. Transactional theory views reading as dynamic, reciprocal, and recursive transactions between the reader, text, and context (Rosenblatt, 2005). What a reader brings to the reading task affects how he interprets the text. For example, a text about a bedtime routine (brushing teeth, putting on pyjamas, etc.) might activate a reader’s knowledge about his own bedtime routine, and these aspects of reader knowledge would then affect how the reader makes meaning with the text. Likewise, context affects how the reader transacts with text. For example, if the reader is reading a book as a class assignment (versus for pleasure) or by oneself (versus with a friend), these too affect how he or she makes meaning. Such transactions between reader/s, text, and context are ‘complex, nonlinear, recursive, [and] self-correcting’ (Rosenblatt, 2005, p. 1371). We studied dyads’ (pairs of emergent readers) reading patterns to observe these ‘complex, nonlinear, recursive, [and] self-correcting’ transactions between readers, text, and context. Text, which refers to ‘signs on the page’ according to the transactional theory, is quite different in app books as compared to paper books. In app books, the ‘signs on the page’ include interactive features (e.g. hotspots, which are places in the app book that activate sounds or actions when touched) and different modes of information (e.g. text, audio, and animation). Thus, we turn to multimodal literacy theories to inform the kinds of transactions that might take place with these texts (e.g. Jewitt & Kress, 2003). Multimodal approaches to literacy deemphasize the centrality of text and language and consider multiple ‘modes’ of communication (Jewitt & Kress, 2003; Kress, 2010; Wolfe & Flewitt, 2010). The traditional print literacy practices (reading and writing) are privileged in school settings and foreground visual modes (e.g. print) for accessing text (Kress, 1997). In contrast, we hypothesize that reading multimodal text will likely involve both visual and action modes (Wohlwend, 2010), thus resulting in more complex transactions between the reader and text. For example, the reader will select a reading mode (e.g. ‘read to me’ that provides the audio of the text read aloud) and make choices about whether and how to use hotspots that activate movement or sound. As children are learning how to engage with multimodal information in app books, such transactions will probably shift and change over time. Finally, grounded in sociocultural theories of learning (Cole & Wertsch, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978), we explore app book reading amongst buddies because reading in a social context helps readers extend and transform their knowledge (Cobb, 1996) and externalize their learning, which results in internalization of these practices (Kozulin, 2003). Two mechanisms may contribute to these processes: (1) modelling (showing one another a way to make meaning with the text) and (2) scaffolding (supporting one another to engage in those processes) (Vygotsky, 1978). We expect that transactions between readers and English text will be more complex for learners who are speaking English as a foreign language (EFL), versus learners who are monolingual speakers of English, because EFL EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 3 learners transact with two overlapping and interacting emerging literate worlds (Moll & Dworin, 1996; Reyes, 2006). Digital book reading patterns and characteristics of readers, texts, and contexts A few studies of young children’s reading of CD-ROM books have shown that young children often use digital features in ineffective ways (de Jong & Bus, 2003, 2004; Lefever-Davis & Pearman, 2005). For example, they use menus to view pages in random order, focusing predominantly on pages that include features they like. They also frequently use digital features that they find interesting, but that are not relevant to the story’s meaning. Sometimes, they do not use the digital features at all. Additionally, they regularly interrupt the oral reading of the story, which results in hearing little of the story’s written content. These uses are not associated with generating a cohesive understanding of the story (de Jong & Bus, 2003, 2004; Lefever-Davis & Pearman, 2005). However, when children are provided with explicit digital book reading instruction, they are more able to use digital features to support meaning-making tasks in the following ways: (1) when they select the ‘read to me’ mode, versus the read myself mode, their inference and critical thinking responses improve for that text; (2) when they use unprompted congruent hotspots (i.e. those that align with the story), versus incongruent hotspots, their literal comprehension and vocabulary meaning derivations from context improve for that text; and (3) overall, their use of digital features to make meaning improves over time across the guided reading of multiple books (Christ et al., 2016). Reader characteristics Three characteristics of readers may affect their app book reading patterns. First, SES is connected to literacy achievement due to literate cultural capital (Tunmer, Chapman, & Prochnow, 2006) and school/neighbourhood characteristics (Aikens & Barbarin, 2008; Sastry & Pebley, 2010) such as class size and access to books (Chatterji, 2006; Neuman, 1999). Thus, we consider the role of SES in our analysis of young children’s app book reading patterns. Second, children’s reading patterns differ depending on whether they are reading in their first language (L1) or a foreign language (August & Shanahan, 2006; Byers-Heinlein & Lew-Williams, 2013; Erdos, Genesee, Savage, & Haigh, 2011; Genesee, 2009; Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, & Christian, 2006; Grüter & Paradis, 2014). Children use their L1 competencies to bootstrap their literacy in a foreign language (Genesee, 2009), such as accessing their L1 when reading to facilitate mental translation of the text, wrestle with word meaning and text comprehension, and monitor text characteristics (Carson, Carrell, Silberstein, Kroll, & Kuehn, 1990; Upton & Lee-Thompson, 2001). Thus, we consider the potential differences in children’s app book reading patterns to be associated with whether children are reading in L1 or a foreign language. Third, while gender differences have not been studied in young children’s app book reading, a study of older children reading online identified gender differences, such as a higher reading rate for boys versus girls, and girls using navigation strategies such as jumping and links from the table of contents more than boys (Huang & Liang, 2015). However, another study of older children reading online did not find gender differences (Wu, 2014). Since how gender may be related to app book reading patterns is yet an open question, it is explored in our study. Text characteristics Certain digital text features affect reading patterns. For example, young children who read CD-ROM texts that include animation have a better understanding of the story than those who read static texts (Ricci & Beal, 2002). Likewise, animated pictures in digital storybooks are found to hold learners’ attention longer and promote deeper word-meaning acquisition than non-animated storybooks when reading in a second language (L2) (Verhallen & Bus, 2010). Also, when interactive features, such as 4 T. CHRIST ET AL. hotspots that allow children to activate animation or sound by pressing specific spots on the digital page, are cohesive with important aspects of the story’s meaning, their use improves children’s story understanding (Labbo & Kuhn, 2000; Verhallen, Bus, & de Jong, 2006). However, when the interactive features are not important to the story or dissonant with the story, children’s comprehension is worse than without using the digital features (Trushell & Maitland, 2005; Zucker, Moody, & McKenna, 2009). This is problematic because 90% of hotspots are not congruent with the storyline (de Jong & Bus, 2003) and thus could adversely affect comprehension. We expect that the existence of animation and the design of hotspots will affect app book reading patterns, too. Additionally, effective navigation tools (e.g. visual cues) help improve older and L2 learners’ navigation, strategy use, and vocabulary learning (Li, Chen, & Yang, 2013; Proctor, Dalton, & Grisham, 2007). Likewise, typographical cues (font, spacing, etc.) affect older students’ reading patterns (Dinet, Bastien, & Kitajima, 2010). This seems akin to salient text that visually stands out in picture books, often drawing young children’s attention (Justice, Meier, & Walpole, 2005). Thus, we expect that navigation tools and typographical cues may similarly affect young children’s app book reading patterns. Context characteristics In the context of social reading, interaction patterns affect the dynamic transactions between readers and text. For example, interactions during adult–child shared reading of digital books improved children’s abilities to use digital features, make dialogic comments, apply concepts about print, and extra-textual talk (Kim & Anderson, 2008; Korat, Segal-Drori, & Klein, 2009; Segal-Drori, Korat, Shamir, & Klein, 2010; Wood, Pillinger, & Jackson, 2010). Likewise, social interactions amongst children during buddy reading of digital books also improve their reading (Shamir, 2009; Shamir & Korat, 2007; Shamir, Korat, & Barbi, 2008). This is because buddies support one another’s navigation and engagement (Brown, 2016; Simpson, Walsh, & Rowsell, 2013), use of hotspots (Shamir, 2009), and higher order thinking (Mercer, Fernandez, Dawes, Wegerif, & Sams, 2003). We expect that children’s app book buddy reading will result in at least some modelling and scaffolding of literacy processes. Based on our previous research on young children’s buddy reading with paper texts, we hypothesize that the types of social interaction styles used by children during buddy reading will also affect their reading patterns. For example, we previously identified that when children engaged in a parallel social interaction style, in which they processed meaning on their own without interacting with their buddy, this resulted in a text-based focus and many uncorrected misconceptions (Christ & Wang, 2012). However, when children engaged in a collaborative social interaction style, in which they supported one another as they read to jointly construct meaning with the text, this resulted in higher order responses to the text and corrections of misinformation (Christ & Wang, 2012). Also, when one child had expertise related to emergent reading or the content of the text, the child often adopted tutor social interaction style, which included telling the other child how to read, and their buddy often adopted a tutee interaction style, such as complying with the buddy’s instructions. While these social interaction patterns are dynamic (e.g. they change based on the text being read, the buddies are who reading together, and these readers’ perceived expertise), within each buddy-reading event there is usually a dominant social interaction style (Christ & Wang, 2012). Therefore, we explore how interaction styles may be similar or different when reading app books, and whether and how they are related to reading patterns. Methods Settings and participants This research was conducted in two public schools in suburban Midwestern USA and in a private school in urban Turkey. The US schools were situated in predominantly low/mid-SES EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 5 neighbourhoods. Most parents had attained high school or associate degrees. The Turkish school was situated in a mid/upper-SES neighbourhood. Most parents had attained bachelor or graduate degrees. Culturally different samples were used so that we could explore reading patterns for a variety of readers and reading tasks (e.g. first- vs. foreign language reading). All kindergarten children in the two US schools and Turkish school were invited to participate in the study. Altogether, 27 US 5–6-year-old dyads, and 28 Turkish 4–5-year-old dyads participated. Most US children were monolingual (4% was learning English as a second language); 53% were girls and 47% boys. Turkish children were all learning EFL; 50% were girls and 50% boys. EFL instruction began in their kindergarten year aligned with the beginning of our study, so children were novice EFL learners during our data collection. Materials We selected interactive multimodal app books that had features that could support emergent literacy development (highlighting text as that app reads it aloud, hotspots that align with and extend the meaning of the written text, etc.). Eighteen books were selected in all – 12 in English (all were used in the USA, 6 were used in Turkey) and 6 in Turkish (all used only in Turkey). For each text, we identified whether it had features that we expected might support meaning-making, as identified in our literature review. (See Table 1 for titles, characteristics, language (i.e. Turkish or English), and sites at which texts were used.) Data collection, coding, and analysis All 27 US and 28 Turkish dyads read a total of 12 app books, twice each, for approximately 15 minutes each time, across a school year. All the sessions were video recorded. The unit of analysis for this study was a buddy-reading event (one dyad’s reading of one app book on a particular day). Emergent coding and constant comparative analyses (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) were used to identify reading patterns across these events. Three main patterns of dyad app book reading emerged and are presented in the findings. Then, 10 focal dyads (5 from each site) were selected as telling cases to illustrate and discuss the reading patterns and factors that affected these. Altogether, we analysed the factors that affected reading patterns across 120 buddy-reading events for our 10 focal dyads. To accomplish this, we used a four-step process. First, we identified the characteristics of the readers in each dyad: (1) SES based on their school’s neighbourhood; (2) whether they were reading in a first or foreign language; and (3) the gender of each buddy in the event. Second, we identified the characteristics of text used in each reading event. We began by focusing on characteristics that previous research identified as affecting reading patterns (animation, hotspots, navigation tools, and typeset). Then, we used emergent coding and constant comparative analysis to identify codes that described the characteristics of each of these in the texts we selected for the study. Final characteristics and codes are presented in Table 2. We applied these codes to each text and reading event to inform our analysis. Third, we coded the context in terms of the predominant social interactions exhibited: collaborative, parallel, or conflict (definitions and examples of each are presented in the Findings section). Finally, we recursively examined how these codes for readers, texts, and contexts were associated with the reading patterns to identify patterns in the relations between these. Findings and discussion Reading patterns Three reading patterns were identified: hotspot-centric, text-centric, and integrated reading patterns. In hotspot-centric reading, children mostly attended to exploring hotspots, not the written text that 6 T. CHRIST ET AL. Table 1. Text titles, characteristics, language, and sites at which texts were used. Title Barnyard Dance The Going to Bed Book The Artist Mortimer Dr. Seuss A, B, C The Cat in the Hat Comes Back Green Eggs and Ham X is for X-ray Being Global A Shiver of Sharks Pat the Cat Toucan Toucan’t Hop on Pop Characteristics Automatic and reader-activated animation Most hotspots align with story Page turn navigation only Text is highlighted when word is read Automatic and reader-activated animation Most hotspots align with story Page turn navigation only Text is highlighted when word is read Automatic and reader-activated animation Most hotspots align with story Page turn navigation only Text is highlighted when word is read No animation All hotspots align with story Page turn and menu navigation Text is highlighted when word is read and labels appear for objects touched in illustration No animation (there is panning in this one, but I do not consider that animation) All hotspots align with story Page turn and menu navigation Text is highlighted when word is read and labels appear for objects touched in illustration No animation (there is panning in this one, but I do not consider that animation) All hotspots align with story Page turn and menu navigation Text is highlighted when word is read and labels appear for objects touched in illustration Automatic animation only No hotspots Page turn and two types of navigation menus Highlights a row of text at a time while reading Automatic and reader-activated animation All hotspots align with story Page turn navigation only Text is highlighted when word is read Automatic and reader-activated animation All hotspots align with story Page turn and menu navigation Text is highlighted when word is touched Automatic and reader-activated animation All hotspots align with story Page turn navigation only Text is highlighted when word is read Record & replay reading option Automatic animation only No hotspots Page turn and menu navigation Text is highlighted when word is touched Record & replay reading option No animation All hotspots align with story Page turn and menu navigation Text is highlighted when word is read and labels appear for objects touched in illustration Record & replay reading option Language Sites English US Turkey English US Turkey English US Turkey English US Turkey English US Turkey English US Turkey English US English US English US English US English US English US (Continued) 7 EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE Table 1. Continued. Title Characteristics Bir Kar Masalı (A Snow Story) Filin Banyosu (Elephant’s Bath) Öykü Bahçesi: Yardımseverlik (Story Garden: Helpfulness) Çilek Dünyası (Strawberry World) Doymak Bilmeyen Balık (The Fish Who Never Gets Full) Ormandaki Okul (The Shool in the Forest) Automatic and reader-activated animation Automatic animation align with story Page turn and menu navigation No hotspots Text is not highlighted In addition to fixed text at each page, pop-up text appears No record & replay reading option Automatic and reader-activated animation Some automatic and reader-activated animation align with story Page turn and menu navigation Some hotspots aligned with story Text appears word by word No record & replay reading option Automatic and reader-activated animation Automatic and reader-activated animation align with story All hotspots align with story Page turn and menu navigation Most of the text is fixed, not highlighted Some text appear when touched in illustration and characters speak No record & replay reading option Automatic and reader-activated animation Automatic and reader-activated animation align with story No page turn – child needs to drag the page to turn Menu navigation Hotspots aligned with story All text fixed, not highlighted Automatic and reader-activated animation Automatic and reader-activated animation align with story No page turn – child needs to drag the page to turn Menu navigation Hotspots aligned with story All text fixed, not highlighted Automatic and reader-activated animation Automatic and reader-activated animation align with story No page turn – child needs to drag the page to turn Menu navigation Hotspots aligned with story All text fixed, not highlighted Language Sites Turkish TUR Turkish TUR Turkish TUR Turkish TUR Turkish TUR Turkish TUR Table 2. Codes for characteristics of texts. Characteristics Animation Hotspots Navigation tools Typeset Other Codes No animation, Automatic animation, User-activated animation, and Automatic and user-activated animation No hotspots in the story, Most hotspots align with story content, and All hotspots align with story content Only page turn navigation available, Only menu navigation available, Menu and page turn navigation available, and Multiple menus and page turn navigation available Typeset is not salient to draw children’s attention, Typeset highlights as text reads to draw children’s attention, Typeset highlights word when user touches it to draw children’s attention, and Typeset highlights as text reads and when user touches it to draw children’s attention; Typeset appears as the book reads (word by word, or phrase by phrase) Typeset appears when touched in illustration or characters speak Record and play feature (allows children to record their reading of text and play it back) 8 T. CHRIST ET AL. was read orally by the app. This pattern often led to disjointed meaning-making, such as commenting on hotspots or creating dialogue to accompany the hotspots, but without attention to storyline cohesion across the book or deep thinking about its content. The following transcript excerpt of Benny and Gail (all names are pseudonyms) reading the Barnyard Dance app book demonstrates this pattern. A1_Benny: A2_Gail: A3_Benny: A4_Gail: [Pressing hotspot] Look it! [He’s referring to how the hotspot makes chicks run.] Wait, wait – stop a sec [She’s leaning in and wanting her partner to let her press the same hotspot.] [Moves back so Gail can have a turn pressing the hotspot, then moves the toward him to regain control of it afterward.] Slide [referring to the slide feature that makes the sheep slide as part of the dance.] [Using the hotspots on the other side of the page to make the chicks dance.] Hey, look it – they’re falling down on the ground! [She’s noticed the behaviour of one chick is different and looks like it’s falling.] Throughout this event, Gail and Benny focused on using the hotspots and attending to their actions for meaning. As was typical of this pattern, they did not stop to listen to the text read, but rather turned pages and immediately began engaging hotspots. Further, their conversation about the text meaning focused on the actions and sounds associated with the hotspots they activated. Similarly, this pattern occurred as Oğuz (male) and Gülşah (female) read the Turkish app book Elephant’s Bath (Filin Banyosu). (Turkish participants’ utterances were originally in Turkish and are translated to English verbatim.) B1_Oğuz: B2_Gülşah: B3_Oğuz: B4_Gülşah: B5_Oğuz: B6_Gülşah: B7_Oğuz: B8_Gülşah: B9_Oğuz: [Presses on the page to hunt for hotspots as the text reads ‘She looked outside. It wasn’t raining. She looked around the kitchen. It wasn’t dripping. She looked up to ceiling. It wasn’t dripping from there either’.] [Grabs the tablet, moves it closer to herself, and starts pressing different spots.] Take it to bird, sun once [Asking Gülşah to press the hotspots that activate the bird and sun animations on the page.] [Ignores the peer and presses on the page randomly to explore hotspots of the page as the text reads.] Take it to bird and sun. [Repeating his request.] [Presses the bird and sun hotspots. The bird chirps and the sun moves.] Bird and sun … [Excitedly leaning in to see the tablet screen.] [Shifts to pressing other spots on the page as the text continues reading.] All right, it’s my turn [Grabbing the tablet and moving it closer to himself]. [He swipes to turn to next page and presses hot spots randomly as the text reads.] All of the interactions between these two focused on ﬁnding the desired hotspots. Other than labelling these, they did not engage in meaning-making related to the story. The second reading pattern that we identified was text-centric reading. When children engaged in text-centric reading, they mostly listened to the text and paid attention to the words. This led to children having a basic understanding of the storyline, but they missed opportunities to enrich their understanding through additional information offered via hotspots. This pattern in demonstrated in the following transcript excerpt of La’Tisha and Arielle reading the app book The Cat in the Hat. C1_La’Tisha: C2_Arielle: C3_La’Tisha: C4_Arielle: C5_La’Tisha: C6_Both: C7_Arielle: My turn? Yeah. [Swipes to turn the page.] [Changing her mind.] Hey, it was my turn. [Text reads ‘Cat in the Hat’] Black Cat. [Listen attentively as the page reads aloud.] [Before the page is done, she reaches over to the far bottom-right corner of the book where the ‘swipe’ action can turn the page.] My turn [next]. While the girls listened to the text, they did little to discuss or expand on the meaning by using other available features, such as hotspots. This resulted in limited complexity of their engagement. EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 9 We found this pattern amongst the Turkish participants as well. When Çağrı (male) and Ayşe (female) read the English app book Barnyard Dance, they focused on listening to the text without the use of hotspots. D1_Çağrı: D2_Ayşe: D3_Çağrı: D4_Ayşe: D5_Çağrı: D6_Ayşe: D7_Çağrı: There you go. It’s your turn. [Moving the tablet toward her.] [Listens to text being read.] Flip it from here, flip it. [Leaning in and trying to swipe to turn the page.] Leave it. I’ll do it. [Retracts his hand.] [Pulls the tablet toward herself and continues listening to text.] My turn! [Pulling the tablet toward himself when the page is done.] [Swipes to turn the page.] Almost identical to La’Tisha and Arielle’s actions, Çağrı and Ayşe solely focused on listening to the text and turning pages. They did not use any hotspots or discuss the story. The final reading pattern that we identified was the integrated pattern. This included listening to the text read first, then using the hotspots, and often commenting on the meaning of the text. This pattern is demonstrated in the following excerpt in which Larry and Leah read A Shiver of Sharks. [Text reads, ‘A bale of sea turtles lays eggs on the shore’.] F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 Larry: Leah: Larry: Leah: Larry: How do they lay eggs? Now let’s see if we can find out. [Begins hitting tablet hunting for hotspots.] They sleep. [Referring to how the turtle’s eyes close when the hotspot is activated.] [Continues activating hotspots until eggs come out of the turtles.] Eggs popped out! [This is shown via hotspot activation.] Likewise, this pattern of deeper meaning-making also occurred when Turkish participants Neşe (female) and Çınar read the Turkish app book Story Garden: Helpfulness. H1_Neşe: Not yet. When it’s done. [Meaning not to press hotspots until the text finishes reading.] [Text reads, ‘Let’s feed the seagulls’.] H2_Neşe: H3_Çınar: H7_Neşe: [Presses a hotspot that activates a seagull eating a bagel.] Why don’t you do one? [Presses a hotspot.] Why are we pressing that? So that they [the seagulls] are full. As illustrated above, it is evident that both the hotspot-centric and the text-centric reading result in quite limited engagement with the content of the story, while the integrated pattern is associated with deeper discussion and meaning-making of the content. This is likely because the integrated reading pattern (i.e. both listening to text reading aloud and then using hotspots) provides children more opportunities to construct meaning and layer information from different modes, thus leading to deeper learning and thinking. These patterns included behaviours identified in previous research on young children’s reading with CD-ROM books, such as not listening to the text read to them, as occurs in our hotspotcentric patterns, or not using digital features such as hotspots, which occurs in our text-centric pattern (de Jong & Bus, 2003, 2004; Lefever-Davis & Pearman, 2005). To extend the findings of previous research, which did not explore changes in app book reading over time, our research explores potential patterns of change over time as they relate to reader, text, and context characteristics. Reader characteristics and reading patterns We identified three patterns that described how readers’ characteristics, such as differences in SES, language, and gender, may have been associated with dyads’ app book reading patterns in the USA and Turkey. First, the mostly monolingual US dyads who attended schools in low- to mid-SES areas often took longer to develop integrated reading patterns. For example, in transcript excerpt A, Benny and Gail are reading using a hotspot-centric reading pattern. Two weeks later, their reading of the app, Going to Bed Book, also followed this hotspot-centric reading pattern. It was 10 T. CHRIST ET AL. not until seven weeks later that they began to read using a more integrated pattern, including listening to the text and using hotspots afterward, while reading the app book Green Eggs and Ham. In contrast, the Turkish dyads who were learning EFL and attended schools in mid- to upper-SES areas shifted from demonstrating hotspot-centric to integrated reading pattern in a relatively shorter period for the app books in a foreign language (i.e. English). For example, while Ayşe and Çağrı initially read their first English app book in the hotspot-centric style, as exemplified in transcript excerpt D, they demonstrated an integrated reading pattern just four weeks later with the app book The Artist Mortimer. This shift was even faster for the app books they read in their first Language (Turkish). Further, the children who shifted from using hotspot-centric to integrated reading patterns in a relatively shorter period of time sustained this reading pattern for many of the app books read across the rest of the study. Since children in both the USA and Turkey received the same instruction and opportunity to practise reading app books in school, we conjecture that the potential differences in children’s reading experiences related to SES and children’s linguistic abilities may have played roles in these differences. The second pattern we found related to reader characteristics was that Turkish dyads read in their native language and EFL differently. For example, while Basar read an English app book, Green Eggs and Ham, using a text-centric pattern (i.e. only listening to text), within the same week he used an integrated reading pattern (i.e. listening to the text reading and then pressing on the hotspots) to read the Turkish app book Strawberry World, as evidenced in the following excerpt. I1_Başar: I2_Ahmet: I3_Başar: I4_Ahmet: I5_Başar: [Listens to text read, then presses the hotspot that activates the crocodile throwing strawberries in its mouth and elsewhere.] [Presses the same hotspot.] Did you see that? It threw it [the strawberry] away here! [Giggles and presses the same hotspot. This time crocodile throws a strawberry on top of its head.] This time it threw it away to his head! This pattern of children using a more text-centric pattern when reading in EFL, but using an integrated reading pattern near the same point in time while reading in their native language was found consistently across the Turkish children who read in both languages for this study. (Recall that US children only read in one language – English, so this pattern could not be explored in that part of the data set.) While we conjecture that this had to do with children’s linguistic proﬁciency with the language of the text, it might also have been affected by the differences in the quality of digital features of texts in English versus Turkish languages (see the ‘How the Text Affects Reading Patterns’ section for further discussion). Finally, the third pattern related to reader characteristics was gender differences in the Turkish dyads’ reading patterns. While same-gender buddies were more likely to conform to buddyreading rules (taking turn, sharing the book, etc.), mixed-gender buddies tended to deviate from the buddy-reading rules. In turn, whether or not buddies followed the rules was associated with differences in reading patterns. The general pattern for Turkish same-gender dyads was that they followed the reading rules and used integrated reading more often. This was the case in the transcript excerpt below, in which male buddies Kağan and Ümit read the Turkish app book Strawberry World. J1_Both: J2_Kağan: J3_Ümit: J4_Kağan: J5_Ümit: J6_Kağan: J7_Ümit: [Listening to text reading.] Let’s change some of the things, right? Okay, let it be the strawberry [Referring to activating the hotspots that turn any object touched on the page into strawberry.] Okay. [Looking for a hotspot on the page.] Touch once. Touch. [Pointing to a hotspot for Ümit to touch.] [Presses the hotspot that Kağan pointed at and it turns into a strawberry.] Look! Strawberry! Now the tablecloth will also turn into strawberry! [Presses the hotspot and the tablecloth turns into a strawberry.] There you go! Look, do this now. Here, look here! [Pointing to another hotspot that this time Look, do this now. Here, look here! [Pointing to another hotspot that this time Kağan can press to turn into a strawberry.] EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 11 In contrast, the general pattern for Turkish mixed-gender dyads was that they followed rules less frequently and used hotspot-centric reading more frequently. These patterns occurred in the following transcript excerpt, as the mixed-gender buddies Birgül (female) and Yağız (male) read the Turkish app book Story Garden: Helpfulness. K1_Birgül: K2_Yağız: K3_Birgül: K4_Yağız: K5_Birgül: [Waiting for the text to finish reading.] [Interjects and presses hotspots before the text finishes reading.] [Moves the tablet toward herself to gain the control of it.] [Interjects and presses hotspots again as the text is reading.] [Moves Yağız’s finger away.] I’ll press it! [Starts pressing hotspots randomly before the text finishes reading.] Unlike the Turkish data set, in the US data set children used buddy-reading rules and reading patterns more similarly across same- and mixed-gender buddy groups. For example, both same-gender and mixed-gender buddy groups did not always follow the buddy-reading rules. This was the case when a girl and boy, Qamar and Johari, read the Green Eggs and Ham app book, as shown in the following transcript excerpt. L1_Johari: L2_Qamar: L3_Johari: L4_Qamar: L5_Johari: [Tries to pull tablet closer to her, as it is directly in front of Qamar.] [Pulling the tablet back toward him.] Hey! [Reaches over to activate a hotspot.] No! [He pushes Johari’s hand away. He wants to choose a page from the menu that he has opened. He scrolls the menu fast.] [Gets poised with her finger to choose a page, but seems not able to do so because of how fast Qamar is scrolling through the menu.] These ﬁndings suggest that gender can be, but is not always, a factor that inﬂuences reading patterns. The differences we found may have been related to cultural differences with regard to gender roles and expectations at the two research sites. However, a much larger data set would be required to conﬁrm or disconﬁrm a cultural explanation for the gender pattern differences identiﬁed here. The patterns that we identified about how reader characteristics are associated with reading patterns underscore the importance of considering reader characteristics for both text selection and instructional design. For example, features that support integrated reading might be more important in terms of text selection for readers from low- to mid-SES neighbourhoods and children reading in EFL, whereas children reading in their first language and living in mid- to upper-SES neighbourhoods may be more easily able to use integrated reading without the additional text scaffolds (e.g. those in Story Garden). This may be related to their literate cultural capital (Tunmer et al., 2006). Particularly, we know through anecdotal information that the children from the Turkish site, who lived in mid- to upper-SES neighbourhoods, were much more likely to have access to a tablet at home as compared to the children from the USA who lived in low- to mid-SES neighbourhoods. Additionally, children’s book and language experiences may have varied related to the SES of the neighbourhoods in which the children lived too, as found in previous research (Aikens & Barbarin, 2008; Fernald, Marchman, & Weisleder, 2013). However, given that we were unable to collect data about home book and language experiences, this is yet an open question. How the text affects reading patterns As expected, animation, navigation tools, and typographical cues all were related to children’s app book reading patterns. First, animations affected children’s attention to various aspects of text meaning, as well as their reading patterns. Often, animations had a positive effect on children’s literacy learning opportunities. In Barnyard Dance, when the cow hotspot was pressed, the cow bowed. This focused children’s attention on a meaning for bow by demonstrating it via animations, and thus facilitating meaning vocabulary development. While reading this book, Jennifer exclaimed to Daren, ‘Look, they’re bowing’. Likewise, in the Turkish app book, Story Garden: Helpfulness, readers 12 T. CHRIST ET AL. could press on a bird, and the hotspot would label the bird (e.g. ‘woodpecker’) and a small square at the top right corner of the page would appear with expository information about that bird, thus facilitating their vocabulary learning. In both examples, children often discussed this information, which resulted in collaborative and integrated reading. Similarly, in Green Eggs and Ham, when the illustrations were pressed, the hotpots generated written words that labelled these illustrations. For example, if a reader pressed the ham in the illustration, then the word ‘ham’ would appear. This hotspot function drew children’s attention to the written words in the text, which could potentially support their word recognition or concepts about print (e.g. concept of word). This use of word hotspots was associated with both hotspot-centric and integrated reading, and all social interaction patterns. Sometimes the design of the animations did not align with a specific aspect of literacy learning, such as vocabulary or word recognition, but rather more generally facilitated integrated reading, which was associated with deeper discussions about text meaning. For example, in the Turkish app book Story Garden: Helpfulness, as the text read, ‘The box fell quickly into the garden … ’, an automatic animation of a big box falls into the garden. This animation provides a cue for children to press on the box to open it and see what is inside (i.e. hotspot). If a child does not press on the hotspot, after a few seconds the page automatically says, ‘Come on, you can open the box!’ If the pause is longer, it provides a knocking sound followed by the cue, ‘Hey, are you there?’ This draws the reader’s attention back to the text and encourages him to interact with the hotspot. Further, since children needed to wait until the page has read aloud before they can access the hotspots (e.g. the box does not appear until after the text has read), they are unable to ignore the text and use hotspots only. These aspects of text design resulted in children typically engaging in integrated reading with this text. In contrast, sometimes animations deterred from children’s meaning-making and did not support literacy learning. This was particularly the case when hotspots were not well aligned with the content of the story. For example, in the following excerpt of Buğra and Başak reading a Turkish app book, A Snow Story, the page they are reading is illustrated in a snowy scene with houses, trees, chimneys, clouds, and a road with two cars. Automated animations include the smoke coming out of chimneys and one of the cars riding, which can be further pressed and dragged anywhere on the page. The text, on the other hand, does not make any reference to the cars or chimneys, which are the only automatic animations and hotspots of the page. Rather, it reads about how it snowed all night and that snow now covers everywhere. M1_Buğra: M2_Buğra: M3_Başak: M4_Başak: M6_Başak: Here, everything was covered in snow. [Pointing to the page and retelling the actual story represented in text accurately.] [Notices that the car illustration can be dragged anywhere on the page, however the text of that page does not make any reference to the car.] The car is going like this. [Pressing the car and dragging it to random spots on the page.] Look, let me crash the car into the house. [Dragging the car into the house on the page.] It’s my turn. [Moves the tablet toward herself and regains the control of it.] [Imitates what Buğra did and drags the car to random spots on the page.] M5_Researcher [Realizes that the discussion is deviating from the story.] Can you tell your buddy what happened on that page? While the car is going, you put the car in another place and then it goes to that direction. [He tells how the hotspot functions, not what the text stated.] As seen in this excerpt, automatic animations or hotspots that are not cohesive with the story drew children’s attention away from the storyline and resulted in focus on the hotspots instead. This did not contribute to developing story understanding. Second, navigation features affected children’s reading patterns in complex ways, as they allowed readers to engage with the books via multiple potential pathways. We identified four patterns that reflected readers’ navigation pathways for reading the app books: sequential, reviewing, favourite page, and hunt and peck. These patterns were sometimes also used in combination, particularly sequential and reviewing. EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 13 Sequential and reviewing patterns reflected the use of navigation features that were modelled during read-alouds in the children’s classes. In sequential reading, children turned pages to navigate through the text page by page in order from the first to the last page. As children read sequentially, or after they were done reading sequentially, occasionally they would seek specific information, and navigate back to a previous page to find this information. We refer to this as the reviewing pattern. For example, as Jennifer and Daren read Barnyard Dance, Daren turned the page, but Jennifer exclaimed, ‘Go back! I want to see the duck!’ She was referring to a hotspot that activated the duck strutting, which accompanied the text, ‘Strut with the duck’. This use of sequential and reviewing patterns of navigation was typically associated with integrated and collaborative reading patterns, which were also sanctioned patterns that were modelled in classroom read-alouds. Other navigation patterns used by children were not related to what was modelled during classroom read-alouds, such as favourite page and hunt and peck. In the favourite page pattern, children spent most of their time reading just one or two favourite pages in the book. For example, Katie and Leah spent one-third of their buddy-reading session just reading the pages for ‘F’ and ‘G’ of Dr. Seuss’s ABCs recursively, particularly spending the most time on the ‘F’ page activating the word hotspots that read, ‘Fiffer-feffer-feff’. In the hunt and peck pattern, children scrolled through the menu after each page to choose another page. For example, Keeley, Vrinda, and Nora listened to a page of Green Eggs and Ham, activated the menu, scrolled to select another page, listened to that page, and then activated the menu again to select another page throughout the majority of their reading session. Both of these patterns were typically associated with hotspot-centric and parallel reading patterns, which, like these navigation patterns, were not sanctioned practices. Finally, whether typographical cues were available affected the extent to which children attended to the written words in the texts. This was particularly evident in the Turkish data set, because the availability of typographical cues differed distinctly across English and Turkish app books. For example, at least some typographical cues were available in each of the English app books. In contrast, most of the Turkish app books included static text with no such cues, except for some that included words in all capital letters (e.g. A Snow Story) and text that appeared in ‘flying in’ motion asynchronously with the accompanying read-aloud (e.g. Elephant’s Bath). These features in the Turkish books were actually more likely to confuse, rather than support, an emergent reader’s attention to and learning from print-salient text. As one might expect, we found that Turkish children attended more to written text in the print-salient English app books. For example, as Çiğdem (male) and Asya (female) read the English app book, The Going to Bed Book, both buddies attended to the print text. N1_Asya: N2 Çiğdem: Oh, this is my letter! [Associates the letter in the highlighted word with a letter in her name, and presses it to activate the hotspot.] Look--Aj-da! My mom’s name is Ajda. The print-salient text was particularly useful to support Turkish readers’ EFL learning. Our findings concur with previous research that showed animation supports the reading process when it aligns with the text content (Labbo & Kuhn, 2000; Verhallen et al., 2006), and detracts from it when it does not. Further, it extends this body of research by showing examples of how specific congruent hotspots facilitate specific literacy learning objectives, such as vocabulary learning or word recognition, as well as support collaborative interactions in the buddy-reading context. Additionally, our findings provide evidence that navigation features and typographical cues affect young children’s reading patterns, just as they do older children’s patterns (Dinet et al., 2010), and extend the existing research by identifying four patterns of navigation used by young children reading app books and that the kinds of typographical cues provided (e.g. highlighting text, such as in the English app books, versus flying text or no animation of text, such as in the Turkish app books) affect young children’s attention to print. 14 T. CHRIST ET AL. How the context in which reading occurs affects reading patterns Reading contexts were typically dominated by one of three social interaction styles – collaborative, parallel, or conflict, and these styles were each related to specific reading patterns. It is important to note that while a dominant style was typically identifiable in each buddy-reading event, multiple social interaction styles might have been evident at moments within each event. Collaborative interaction style, which was identified in our previous research using paper texts (Christ & Wang, 2012), was characterized by frequent interactions amongst buddies to help each other read and focus on text meaning. When children read collaboratively, they tended to use an integrated reading pattern, as was the case in transcript excerpts F, H, I, and J. Parallel interaction style, also identified in our previous research (Christ & Wang, 2012), was characterized by buddies interacting with the app book separately from their partner through strict turn taking or excluding their partner from interacting at all. When children engaged in parallel interactions, they tended to use either hotspot-centric reading pattern, such as occurred in transcript excerpts C and D, or a text-centric reading pattern. Conflict interaction style, which was not identified in our previous buddy-reading research, was characterized by children fighting over engagement with the app book. This occurred in transcripts K and L, and tended to result in hotspot-centric reading. Social interaction patterns also varied across books read in a native versus foreign language, as well as across time. Table 3 shows differences in typical social interaction styles and reading patterns demonstrated in the Turkish data set when children read in their native Turkish versus EFL at various points in time during the study. As shown in Table 3, Turkish children mostly engaged in collaborative and integrated reading when the app book was in Turkish. This was likely because children’s comprehension and discussion of the text were easier in their native language, as compared to reading in a foreign language. Further, since the Turkish children in this study had just begun their English language instruction simultaneously with this research, their limited English proficiency likely negatively affected their ability to comprehend and discuss the English app books in as complex ways as they could with the Turkish books. This may explain why they engaged in hotspot-centric reading for a longer period with the English books. Further, when Turkish children did engage in collaborative and integrated reading patterns, their discussions were often in Turkish and included instances of code-switching to English only to repeat the text or label illustrations with English words. Our findings show some differences between social interaction styles when reading paper versus app books. While children used collaborative and parallel social interactions that had been identified in previous research using paper texts (Christ & Wang, 2012; Christ, Wang, et al., 2014; Christ, Chiu, et al., 2014), the tutor–tutee social interactions identified previously did not occur in our current data. It may have been the strong desire to engage with the tablet that deterred children from engaging in the tutor–tutee role, as both children want to have control of engaging with the tablet themselves rather than following the other child’s prescriptions about how to engage with it. Or, it might have been that neither child was seen as a clearer expert to adopt the tutor versus tutee roles. Further, we identified a new social interaction pattern in the app book buddy-reading context – that is, conflict. This extends the patterns identified in previous buddy-reading research (e.g. Christ & Wang, 2012). Again, it seems to be each child’s desire to control the tablet that propels this pattern of interactions. Based on these findings, it seems important to help children learn skills for resolving Table 3. Social interaction styles and reading patterns for the app books in L1 and L2. Turkish App Books December Conflict/Hotspot-centric English App Books December Conflict/Hotspot-centric February Parallel/Text-centric April Collaborative/Integrated June Collaborative/Integrated February Parallel/Hotspot-centric April Parallel/Text-centric June Collaborative/Integrated EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 15 conflict while sharing a tablet, as well as modelling and supporting collaborative social interactions, since these are related to deeper discussions about text meanings and support a progression towards integrated reading. Implications This study identified three main reading patterns used by young children reading app books with their buddies: hotspot-centric, text-centric, and integrated. When children used the integrated reading pattern, they were most likely to engage in deep processing and response to text. Reader characteristics, such as SES, reading in a native or foreign language, and gender all seemed to affect children’s reading patterns. Likewise, several characteristics of text also affected children’s reading patterns – animations, navigation features, and typographical cues. Finally, the reading context, which was marked by differences in social interaction styles, affected reading patterns. Specifically, collaborative interactions encouraged integrated reading. These findings have important implications for education and app book design. Education Implications for education can be culled from our findings. First, given that we found differences in reading patterns that seemed related to the SES, we suggest, as many researchers before for us have, that it is critical to build the literate cultural capital of all children by partnering with families and increasing resources, particularly in low- to mid-SES communities. This could be done in many ways, such as through family partnership with teachers and schools, or modelling of literacy practice amongst families and teachers. Funding to increase resources in low- to mid-SES communities may also support development of this capital via more access to opportunities to engage in a variety of literacy practices for children and their families. Second, based on our findings that children read differently in their native versus foreign language, we suggest that teachers working with young learners reading in EFL should consider children’s level of foreign language proficiency when selecting app books in the target language. Our findings suggest that foreign language app books that are beyond children’s current level of language proficiency may predominantly yield hotspot-centred reading due to their immature text comprehension skills in the foreign language. Expecting children to engage in integrated reading when they are recently introduced to a foreign language may not be realistic as well. Rather, teachers of children reading in EFL should select app books that align with and capitalize on the contents of classroom EFL instruction, so as to facilitate their transition towards more advanced reading patterns progressively over time. As the findings suggest in our study, print-salient app books may facilitate emergent EFL readers’ acquisition of letter awareness in the foreign language. Likewise, app books that expose children to salient vocabulary in the foreign language may support their vocabulary learning. Therefore, selecting app books that focus on fostering foreign language skills in such concrete domains, rather than books with linguistically complex storyline, may support learners’ foreign language development, while helping them develop progressively more advanced reading patterns in EFL over time. Third, since whether the gender of buddies paired together was the same or not yielded differences in reading patterns in some contexts (Turkey), but not others (the USA), teachers should observe how dyads are working together. These observations can guide teachers’ facilitation of dyads’ interactions or reassignment of dyad partners to increase reading effectiveness. Until we learn more about these gender dynamics, using observation and responsive management of dyads may be the best approach. Fourth, given our finding that certain animation features supported specific literacy learning (e.g. vocabulary or word recognition), it would make sense for teachers to select app books with features that align with their instructional objectives. Further, our findings suggest that teachers should 16 T. CHRIST ET AL. choose app books that have predominately supportive features, such as congruent hotspots and text highlighting, as these tend to facilitate engagement. Other features, such as non-congruent hotspots, flying letters, or no highlighting, that can detract from children’s meaning-making and attention to print in app books might be better avoided. Finally, teachers should model and scaffold collaborative social interactions, sequential and reviewing navigation patterns, and integrated reading patterns, since these were the patterns that resulted in the deepest meaning-making. It seems, based on our data, that modelling and scaffolding of these patterns might be particularly critical for readers from low- to mid-SES neighbourhoods and those reading in EFL, given that children with these characteristics developed the use of more effective reading patterns more slowly. App book design Our findings show how important thoughtful design of app books is to facilitate successful reading patterns and literacy learning. First, animations should support some aspect of text understanding or literacy learning – for example, hotspots that show the meaning for a word, such as was the case for bow in Barnyard Dance, or label a concept in the illustration that is relevant to the story, such as woodpecker in Story Garden. Also, it is helpful when animations do not co-occur with the reading of the text – for example, the thoughtful design of Story Garden facilitated integrated reading because the text had to read first before the hotspot became available. While more focused instruction may result in children’s development of integrated reading, as it did for many children in our study, app design that forces children to listen first and then use hotspots may also be helpful. Additionally, animations that are not well aligned with the story content should be avoided in app book design, as has been suggested for CDROM books (Labbo & Kuhn, 2000; Trushell & Maitland, 2005; Verhallen et al., 2006; Zucker et al., 2009). Second, the inclusion of navigation menus for app books intended for young children might need to be reconsidered. While navigation features improved older readers’ review of information in text (Li et al., 2013), emergent readers in our study often misused the menu navigation feature to engage with texts non-sequentially and skipped pages of text altogether. These ‘hunt and peck’ or ‘favourite page’ approaches to navigation did not align with deep conversations about meaning. While more intensive instruction about when and how to use these menus may be useful, and may reduce the problem we identified in our data set, these menus are likely to remain a temptation to engage with text in ineffective ways while children are still gaining basic digital literacy skills. Texts designed to appropriately guide the user through the content could act as a scaffold to support children’s appropriate engagement with app book text, including reading sequentially, which seems to be the expectation of most app book designers, given that the storylines for all the books we used and reviewed were sequential and linear. Third, certain kinds of typographical cues seemed to be most effective for drawing children’s attention to print, such as highlighting of the text as it was read aloud. Other cues (e.g. flying letters and no highlighting of text as it is read) seemed less effective. Designers should focus on integrating the effective cues and leave out the ineffective cues. Limitations and directions for future research There are four limitations of this study, which help us identify directions for future research. First, given the exploratory nature of this project, and its qualitative design, the results cannot be generalized. Future research might also engage in quantitative research of this nature. Related to this, while the design of our research did not allow for statistical comparisons across factors (language, SES, text design, etc.), it did identify factors that might be important to further examine in future quantitative research. EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 17 Second, while the study includes a sample of children from various SES and language backgrounds, it includes only mid- to upper-SES children reading in a foreign language. Future research should also examine low-SES children reading in a foreign language. Third, few high-quality Turkish app books were available for use in this research, which resulted in some slightly lower-quality texts being used as compared to the English language app books. These differences could have contributed to some of the patterns we found when comparing children’s reading patterns in their first language versus EFL in the Turkish data set. Future research, to control for this, might use specially designed text sets that are the same across languages. Finally, this research focused on reading patterns, but did not include an outcome measure for comprehension, such as retelling or high-order thinking question scores. Future research should examine the relations between reading patterns and such outcomes. Acknowledgements We thank the children and teachers for their time and participation. Thanks to K. Andrews, C. Aoki, N. Kazemi Zadeh Gol, D. Kitson, and Elif Özge Erkal for data collection assistance, and N. Kazemi Zadeh Gol and P. Li for the their assistance in coding of these data. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Funding The project is supported by research grants from Spencer Foundation, Elva Knight Research Grant from the International Literacy Association, and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). Notes on contributors Dr. Tanya Christ is a reading and language arts professor at Oakland University. She studies early childhood literacy processes and learning related to vocabulary, comprehension, and reading with multimodal texts. Dr. X. Christine Wang is an early childhood professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She studies young children’s learning with technology, vocabulary and science learning, and epistemology. Dr. Ersoy Erdemir is an early childhood professor at Bogazici University in Turkey. 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