How did the children benefit from storybook reading?
The authors highlight previous studies in this area which had demonstrated positive outcomes, such as improved pictorial and verbal memory, word knowledge, verbal fluency, and opposite analogies (e.g. boy-girl, sweet-sour etc). In this study they decided to concentrate on how well children in the kindergarten increased their vocabulary through listening to stories. The study showed that there was a significant increase in children’s vocabulary after the storybook sessions. This was true whether the story was delivered by the teacher or by computer, and among all ethnic groups. The experiment also revealed that children from an immigrant background performed less well on the comprehension task whether the story was read by the teacher or the computer.
