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Multimedia Talking Books: Supporting Literacy for All Children Lee Lay Wah [email protected]

Introduction One of the most simple and yet amazingly rich ideas that have developed out of combining both literacy and technology is the creation of the multimedia talking book. To help foster a love for reading and to expose students to richer texts, there has been a great expansion in the use of storybooks in schools. The proliferations of big books and colourful reading books have especially helped to promote beginning literacy among beginning readers. Adding the multimedia component with its intrinsic interactive and motivational value to this literacy environment can only make reading richer and more interesting.

Multimedia

Talking Books

Reading and learning to read is a complex skill involving the use and coordination of a large set of sub skills in the whole-brain process. Practicing and supporting these skills are essential for success in reading especially among beginning readers. Combining both the principles of print storybooks with the hypermedia principle, we now have hypermediabased children's literature better known as multimedia talking books or electronic talking books to enhance literacy. Multimedia talking books are essentially interactive, electronic versions of stories that use multimedia features of highlighted texts, sounds, visuals, animation and interactivity to help children access to the stories. When stories are told in multimedia presentations, the characters of these stories literally come alive across the computer screen. Stories in multimedia talking books are usually backed up with interactive text narration, sound effects, interactive and relevant graphics and animation which can be played back unlimited times by readers. By clicking on 'hotspots', which could be particular texts or graphics, children can receive responses, which help them to interact with the story. For example, the pronunciation, definition and semantic information of a particular word can be accessed. With a click, the computer may respond by playing a video clip, music, and sound effect or reveal a graphic and an animation. Children can opt for the story to be read aloud by a 'fluent reader' which is the text narration built into the multimedia presentation or they can opt to read the story silently on their own. Some sophisticated multimedia programs may allow children to even record their own responses or write their own onscreen journals.

Enhancing Literacy in Young Children In a balanced literacy program, reading, writing and listening skills are cultivated through many different strategies. Multimedia talking books can be used to support strategies such as reading aloud, shared reading, guided reading and independent reading. Children can benefit from the repetition of reading aloud by 'fluent narrators' built into the multimedia talking books. Although technology can never take the place of the teacher in guided 103

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reading, instructional supports can be built into multimedia talking books to help scaffold student learning. Multimedia talking books can also double up as resource materials for children to read during shared and independent reading times. Another way of making learning more meaningful is to have children develop their own multimedia talking books through project-based learning. By bringing real-life context and technology to the literacy curriculum through project-based learning, students are encouraged to become independent workers, critical thinkers, and lifelong learners (Instructional Module: Project based learning, 2005).

Access to Literature

for Children with Special Needs

Access to literature is of utmost importance including for children with special educational needs. There are, however, a number of pupils who cannot read independently because of their cognitive and physical difficulties. As highlighted by Walter (2002) some of these children cannot turn to the next page of a book nor skip ahead or turn back to reread a page. Someone else have to hold and turn the pages for them. For a lot of children with special needs, the availability of electronic talking books has made literature more accessible. With the aid of technology, a lot of such children can now independently access to electronically published talking books using a variety of assistive technology aids such as switches and screen reading software. However, the amount of electronic books available is still very limited. For some children with significant disabilities, they may never be able to move into agelevel reading, but these children can achieve a level of literacy that permits them to participate more productively in society. With the use of hardware and software now easily available in schools, teachers can now create talking books, which can be tailor made to these children's interest, abilities and needs (Walter, 2002). In multimedia talking books, texts can be graphic or symbol supported in order to provide cognitive access. For children with reading disabilities, sounds and narration in multimedia talking books can enable access to literature (Walter, 2002).

Ready-Made

Multimedia

Talking Books

There are essentially two popular formats for multimedia talking books, the CD-ROM and the online or Internet format. Both formats are becoming increasingly more popular and more abundant. Teachers can opt to use ready-made storybooks in CD-ROM formats such as the Living Book series and Disney's Animated Storybooks. Teachers can also opt to subscribe to online talking storybooks such as the TumbleBooks animated picture books, which are available at http://tumblebooks.com or StoryPlus, available at http:// www.storyplus.com/. Before purchasing ready-made talking books, certain evaluation guidelines such as the language used, multimedia elements, ease of usage, method of navigation, complexity of instructions, instructional supports, prerequisite skills and learning time needs to be taken into consideration.

Creating Multimedia Talking Books With Microsoft's PowerPoint While some teachers prefer to use ready-made materials that can cater to their curriculum needs, an increasing number of teachers have chosen to build their own talking book lO4

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software to enhance their teaching. Principles and models of instructional design, which usually involve three major components of planning, development and evaluation, should guide the process of creating multimedia talking books. Microsoft's PowerPoint is a popular authoring tool used by teachers in developing multimedia talking books because of its easy availability and its ease of usage. Two online tutorials that provide step-by-step instructions on how to use Microsoft's PowerPoint to create multimedia talking books can be downloaded at: a. How To Create Talking Books In PowerPoint 97 And 2000 (Walter, 2002). http:// atto. buffalo. edu/registered/Tutorials/talkingBooks/ppt_ ace.pdf b.

Making Books Accessible to All: Using Multimedia Programs to Adapt Books (Stapler, K, 2005). http://www.cast.org/systemigalleries/download/pdResources/ Making_Books _Accessible_to _All.doc

Sample Multimedia Talking Books In the Technology in Special Education course conducted by this author at the School of Educational Studies, part of the students' course project involved creating multimedia talking books for children with special needs. They were required to plan, develop and evaluate multimedia talking books to meet the needs of the special child. Three of the projects are highlighted here. In the first project, the undergraduate students created a social story, which revolved around a child's schedule in school. Actual pictures of the child engaging in real life activities were used to enhance participation. Text narration was used to guide reading activities. It was interesting to note that apart from achieving literacy objectives, the social story also helped to modify the child's behaviour in school. Some of the slides from the social story are shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: Sample slides from the social story

~~~---~--~.------

I go to school on Monday.

This book belongs to

Do you write in school?

Do you keep your school clean by sweeping the floor?

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In the second project, animals were introduced in the multimedia talking book. Multimedia elements such as sound effects, animation and text narration were used to elaborate on the concept taught. Sample slides from the multimedia talking book are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: Sample slides from

'Mari Mengenal Binatang '.

In the third project, the focus was on reading a simple story, 'I fly'. To reinforce learning, words and phrases used were repeated throughout the story with different animals that could fly. The concept of flying was illustrated using animations. Figure 3: Sample Slides from

I fly

EXERCISE 2 Read: I fly. v "I can fly," said 1 "I can fly," said r • "I can fly," said f

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bird. bee . butterfly.

'I Fly'

'I can fly /1 sai the bat.

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Conclusion As is illustrated in this article, multimedia talking books may playa role in early literacy and in providing access to literature for children with special needs. The potential of using multimedia talking books needs to be explored as it is still an under-researched area.

References Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University press. George Lucas Educational Foundation. (2005). Instructional module: Project based learning. http://www.edutopia.orgimodulesIPBLIwhypbl.php Walter, R. (2002). How to create talking books in PowerPoint 97 and 2000. http://atto.buffalo.edu! registered/Tutorials/talkingBooks/ppt _ace. pdf Stapler, K. (2005). Making books accessible to all: Using multimedia programs to adapt books .http://www. cast. org/system/ galleries/ download/pdResources/ Making_Books _Accessible_to _All.doc

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