Description of Boys and Girls' Nonverbal and Verbal Engagement with Electronic and Paper Books

Girls often outperform boys on measures of literacy achievement. This gender gap in literacy performance has been observed to be persistent over developmental time, consistent across multiple domains of literacy, and widely spread geographically. It is sometimes suggested that boys' achievement in the literacy domain might be improved by the availability of reading materials that are designed to engage boys' attention, such as electronic books with interactive features. We addressed the question of boys' versus girls' engagement with reading materials by observing 20 small groups of boys or girls interacting with an electronic book and then a paper book. The children's engagement with the book in each case was coded using Noldus software. Engagement was operationalized in terms of eye gaze (looking at book or reading partner vs. elsewhere), handling (i.e., touching or pointing at book or partner with engaging as opposed to prohibitive actions), and verbal behaviors (i.e., reading, paraphrasing, or talking about the book when compared to not talking or off-task talk). Total time and percent time spent engaged with each book was examined by gender. The results revealed greater nonverbal engagement with the ebook compared to the paper book but greater verbal engagement with the paper book compared to the ebook. No differences in engagement by gender were observed however.