The Kruskal-Wallis mean ranks revea

The Kruskal-Wallis mean ranks revealed that the electronic storybooks with animation group (n=25) ranked highest, the electronic storybooks without animation group (n=26) ranked second, and the traditional print storybook group (n=26) lowest on the retelling items #6, and #8 (Table 4). Other questions did not reveal statistical differences between the electronic storybooks with animation, the storybooks without animation
group, and the traditional print storybook group.

DISCUSSION
This research found that electronic storybooks can improve and support reading comprehension of struggling readers. These finding are consistent with earlier research by Doty (1999, 2001), Greenlee-Moore and Smith (1996), Grimshaw et al. (2006), Matthew (1997), McNabb (1998), Miller et al. (1994), Pearman (2003, 2008), Pearman and Lefever-Davis (2006), and Shamir et al. (2008).

However, some previous research on electronic storybooks is inconsistent with the findings of this research (De Jong & Bus, 2002; Labbo & Kuhn, 2000; Trushell & Maitland, 2005; Okolo & Hayes, 1996; Scoresby, 1996; Trushell, Burrell, & Maitland, 2001; Trushell, Maitland, & Burrell, 2003; Underwood, 2000). Those claimed that the electronic environment has detrimental effects on comprehension. Characteristic of kids are different these days. In a digital age, today's kids have exposure to multiple alternatives of the stories and multimedia texts. For example, they may have experience with video games, hypertext, online texts, the Web, and other interactive media that they might not have been able to do in the past. Therefore, the influence of interactive media can be a factor that the findings of this research are inconsistent with the results of some previous studies. In addition, it should be considered that most of those studies’ subjects were younger children and also these subjects did not have any reading problems.

In addition to improving comprehension, animation may be beneficial when struggling readers read narrative texts. Therefore, having animation and playing options on electronic storybooks can be helpful for struggling readers to construct meaning from narrative reading materials. This result is supported by ChanLin (2001), and Pearman & Lefever-Davis (2006); however, it is inconsistent with studies by DeJean et al. (1997), Nibley (1993), Okolo and Hayes (1996), and Scoresby (1996). These authors were concerned about the potential distraction of animations in reading comprehension. If animations do not support the text, they may draw students’ attention away from the main points of the text; and may even hinder comprehension. Scoresby (1996) found that animation in electronic books diverted from reading rather than improved it and the animation slowed down recall of textual information.

Another result of this research was that struggling readers’ comprehension is more improved when the story is presented as animated illustrations instead of static illustrations. The retelling results showed that struggling readers understand theme, plot episodes and resolution in stories better with animations available in electronic storybooks than with static visualizations available in electronic storybook and printed storybooks. The result of the research found that the advantages of animation in improving story comprehension and in supporting struggling readers’ ability to make inferences about story events.

This research does not include any quantitative data whether electronic storybooks increase student motivation, and enjoyment, however, the interview results show that the students usually were enthusiastic about reading electronic storybooks.