Discussion
The findings of this study have implications for how to approach shared reading with young children in new contexts with the use of emerging technology. We raise future research questions for a better understanding of best practices for screen mediated shared reading.
Results
Results show that children overall performed slightly above chance on novel monster name retention from the SMSR. However, retention was not as strong as seen in other in-person shared reading studies using the same story. Additionally, while children remembered monster names with equal efficacy regardless of condition and level of engagement, there were still qualitative differences in the reading sessions depending on whether children had their own paper copy of the book to follow along with - in general, the 'with book' condition appeared to increase the challenges posed to children's attention during SMSR, potentially making the word learning task more difficult.