Parent-child joint reading of digital books in bilingual families in Malta
Peer reviewed, Journal article
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Date
2021-08Metadata
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Mifsud, C.L., Georgieva, R., Kucirkova, N. (2021) Parent-child joint reading of digital books in bilingual families in Malta. International Journal of Educational Research, 109, 101844 10.1016/j.ijer.2021.101844Abstract
We examined parent-child shared reading of Maltese and English e-books in four bilingual families. Analysis of the participant videos, questionnaires and semi-structured interview data revealed positive engagement of the participating families, substantiated with three main themes from the participants’ interview accounts: balanced use of e-books and print books, the importance of nurturing child's independence with e-book use, and the unique value of e-books for child's learning, especially in terms of repetition. A theoretically-driven analysis of the video data placed the e-books’ affordances in relation to six facets of children's individual engagement (personalized, sustained, shared, creative, affective and interactive), but it needed to be expanded with four additional facets of parent-child joint engagement (didactic, dialogical, self-directed and experiential).