Introduction
Education refers to the skills acquired, a student who learn write, to read and count will proved to their families and countries as a whole a better future. There are so many areas which were positively affected by education. Knowledge sums up as the main known form of societal sustenance. Education forms the basis of knowledge in individuals, whereby students are called upon to emancipate on different concepts. The knowledge necessitated by any form of education creates awareness in relation to the world on how people live and how it works among us. An illiterate person is more likely to live a life without senses and purposes at all. Aristotle postulated that “reasoning makes us to stand out different from animals”. He meant that we are able to know the consequences that will eventually result from our actions.
Therefore reading and books are a dying art. This is due to the argument that the internet is causing the death of the printed word, and it is reducing the interest of reading amongst children and the young adults hence a sentimental and defensive result from most people. For sure, Internet has become fashionable than the printed books since it is very easy to use internet for making a research on anything that interests a person and this is because, one will find an equal number of articles, reports, and blogs to refer to in a short period than reading books. This shows that soon or later book will pass away and we must be prepared for it.
Technology has been advancing all through the years and the field of education has not been left behind. The use of electronic books in class settings is becoming more and more successful with many schools engaging in it to improve the learning ability of most students. The use of e-books has been a subject of various discussions among scholars and this has led to the conducting of different types of researches with view of finding out their importance to study and how they affect a student’s learning ability compared to while using printed books. The use of e-books has been found to be successful especially among young learners who are able to embrace the technology and use it wisely.
These e-books have greatly affected the students’ understandability of class work as they are able to capture the attention of students more than printed books. With the level of technology today there is need to digitalize the education sector and this will involve making computers available to students.
The Effects of Animation Cues on Vocabulary Development
Electronic books form a big part of learning in schools nowadays with several versions of popular illustrated books mainly for children. The electronic books always have additional feature that make them stand out from normal printed books. These additional features allow them to read clearly distinct words, phrases, and stories and they can also pronounce individual syllable within a word and be able to offer animated cues to the meaning of these words. Animation cues were mainly designed for children since it allows the reader to highlight a specific word that the computer reads aloud. When this user decides to click on a particular word for illustration it gets animated. These features as we will find out later goes a long way into facilitating the children’s learning on how to read as it makes it easier for them to comprehend those words than if they were reading from printed books.
Electronic Storybooks: A Constructivist Approach to Improving Reading Motivation in Grade 1 Students
This approach came up due to the reduction of motivation among readers within the first eight years of their schooling. The research showed us the importance of online eBooks on grade one student’s motivation with reading. The motivation to read is the main reason for involving many children in the process of reading and the skills acquired while reading depending on the amount of time dedicated to the process (Deci & Ryan, 1985). This research however shows how reading children think of themselves as the readers and their association with other language based arrangements (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Due to the powerful nature and the persuasive effect of the internet today on many youths have made electronic books as effective mays that can be used while improving children’s literacy and language skills (Bok, Oostdam, Oter, & Overmaat, 2002; Wepner &Ray, 2000). This shows the evidence that the use of electronic books helps improve the development of children’s reading skills.
Constructivism offers a theoretical way on how to utilize online resources like eBooks for educational reasons especially among lower grade children. With the continuing decrease in motivation to engage in reading especially in elementary schools, researched has shown that some of the ways to improve reading among them is to engage in online reading and constructivist ways to improve reading among young students.
Empowering personalized learning with an interactive e-book learning system for elementary school students
With the use of various gadgets such as iPads and Android Tablets electronic learning has been made easier as these gadgets can be used as eBooks to help in the learning process. The use of these gadgets has greatly improved the field of education since they have a greater flexibility and accessibility than paper texts. According to Coyle (2008), the e-book industry seeks to digitalize learning by digitalizing printed works instead of developing new technology to sustain learning. Korat and Shamir (2008) through their research made a suggestion that the use of e-books leads to improvement of children’s comprehension of the reading and adds a little enjoyment to the process of learning than while using printed books. From these researches we find out that the use of e-books is easier to use among students that printed books which does not give the enjoyment in reading.
Relevance
The study of the effects of animation cues on vocabulary development proved that the use of e-books for learning enhances a child’s comprehension of the topics being learnt unlike if the learning is through printed books. The constructivists approach to improving reading motivation in Grade 1 students also proved successful from the research as the constructivist method was able to effectively improve the motivation to read among the grade 1 students studied. The third research on empowering personalized learning with an interactive e-book learning system for elementary schools also showed that e-book learning positively impacts elementary school students’ experience during learning.
Literature Review
The second article talks about the constructivist approach to improving the reading motivation in grade 1 students. From this article we find out that structures entrenched with electronic storybooks adds to children’s early learning development. The main goal of this study was to find out student’s attitudes and experiences toward reading from electronic sources in a sociocultural context. The student’s behaviors towards completing print-based worksheets were very poor compared to the behaviors while working on computer-based assignments. These behaviors show the positive motivational effects of using electronic source s to learn unlike using printed books.
The third article was no different as the research showed how e-book learning empowers students and make learning much fun and easier to comprehend. The results from the 166 elementary schools was very positive on the influence of using electronic sources as they found out e-books are more acceptable among students than printed books. They found out that learning using electronic sources to learn provided detailed and visible learning process that print sources could not offer to the students. More students were motivated to contribute in class work when e-books were involved. They read more e-books compared to printed books during the study.
Body
Some might think that the best target group for e-book would be infants or teens. Furthermore, this assumption shows that the demographic audience got the most potential to be competent with this technology; publishers have attempted to introduce e-books of the majority novels for example “princess in love”. And one can access it, through Amazon and other online, it is also available in different e-book. The progress of digital age will not cause the immediate demise of books, libraries, and even reading itself because digital may be poised to redefine library role, the establishing of publishing industries, and increase the spirit of reading amongst the public which is not bad news and it is advisable not to demise the use of e-book and digital age and think that there will be no effect on society. Some people argue that the electronic book will never recreate the same sensory satisfaction that the printed book can because with physical book, one can touch its binding, turn its page, all senses engage with the physical book, and inhale its smell. Physical books also entertain solitude and privacy. They decorate places in their multicolored and multisided bookcases and their own varieties of color, size and shape.
Readers reserve to be downloaded and system requirements are strict as to what must be downloaded and where. E-book as a rule is encrypted by the publishers not to print. But the reason has to why e-book have not been widely popular among the younger set, is also the some reason as to why the adults haven’t been easily to embrace e-books: it is easier to read a book on the computer than to read a printed book. Children spend much more time on the computer, and it sometimes affects them physically on their still maturing eyes. But this should apply to those entire using computer regardless of age. Even great resolution computers cannot give a 3-dimensional experience like a book. The reports issued as early as 1990 showed the difference between learning and reading via electronic media and reading from text, the number of people who are reading sustained text is being reduced by competition from visual media. The courage pursues the development of an idea, in a logical chain step by step of reasoning; by paragraphs and sentences- is an outgrowth of the linearity of print.
Classroom Setting
Take an example of a classroom setting of 6 students, 3 girls and 3 boys with ages varying between 5-6years all from grade 1 put together in a classroom. A research is carried out with an aim of finding out the impact of e-books on the learning ability of these students. These students are studied during class time when the teachers are using e-books as the reading materials and when using print sources respectively. The researcher takes not of the student participations in class when these two types of reading materials are being used. After some time it was found out that most students were very active when the teacher used electronic books to teach as many of them actively participated in answering questions and even asking some to the teacher. The researcher found out by reading the mood of the students that they were happier and active when electronic sources were used unlike when print sources were used. The questions asked during classes that used print sources as reading materials was very low and even most students could not correctly answer the questions posed to the by their teachers. This data was collected by writing down the number of students actively engaged in learning when the teacher used electronic sources and when he used print sources respectively. The researcher also studied the faces of these students during these classes and he noted various major changes during these times. From this study it was obvious that students were happier and more active during lessons that involved electronic books than when print books were used.
Conclusion
Reference List
Huang, Y., Liang, T., Su, Y., & Chen, N. (2012). Empowering personalized learning with an interactive e-book
learning system for elementary school students. Educational Technology Research & Development, 60(4), 703-722. doi:10.1007/s11423-012-9237-6
Ciampa, K. (2012). Electronic Storybooks: A Constructivist Approach to Improving Reading Motivation in
Alexander, P. A., & Jetton, T. L. (2003). Learning from traditional and alternative texts:
New conceptualization for an information age. In A. Graesser, M. Gernsbacher, &
S. Goldman (Eds.), Handbook of discourse processes (pp. 199–241). Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Becker, D. A., & Dwyer, M. M. (1994). Using hypermedia to provide learner control.
Blok, H., Oostdam, R., Otter, M., & Overmaat, M. (2002). Computer-assisted instruction
in support of beginning reading instruction: A review. Review of Educational
Research, 72(1), 101-130.
Broderbund. (1998, January 18), Broderbund Home Page. [WWW Document].
URL http://store1-1.broderbund.com/.
Lipson, M. Y., & Wixson, K. K. (1997). Assessment and instruction of reading and
writing disability: An interactive approach (2nd ed.). New York: Addison-Wesley.
Moore, M., & Smith, L. (1996). Interactive computer software: The effects on young children’s reading
achievement. Reading Psychology, 17(1), 43± 64. Standish, D. G. (1992).
The use of CD-ROM based books to improve reading comprehension in second-grade students. Delaware
Education Consolidation Improvement Act. (ERIC Reproduction Service No. ED 352 605)
Higgins, N. C., & Cocks, P. (1999). THE EFFECTS OF ANIMATION CUES ON VOCABULARY
DEVELOPMENT. Reading Psychology, 20(1), 1-10. doi:10.1080/027027199278475
