Enhancing Picture Book Reading Experiences: Empowering Children Through Participatory Technology Solutions in Early Years

The Erasmus Plus project, Stimulating Adventures for Young Learners (SAYL), aims to establish a digital library of picture books, empowering young children to engage in book reading without adult guidance. Our primary focus is on leveraging technology to address challenges that might impede the cognitive processing of stories conveyed through a combination of words and images. The challenge in creating digital books lies in effectively guiding the reader’s cognitive processing during reading, without overwhelming or underutilizing their working memory capacity. Following the principles of multimedia learning theory, we must acknowledge the limited memory capacity allocated to the two channels processing visual and verbal information. This restriction necessitates minimizing any unnecessary cognitive load, for instance due to the effort required to navigate through the book. Similarly, it requires swiftly identifying the essential information necessary for comprehending the story, even in the presence of various distractions. Furthermore, according to multimedia learning theory, we cannot expect the effortless integration of essential information. Many young children may require incentives to achieve that. This chapter explores how enhancements, such as highlighting specific details or incorporating animations or musical elements, can assist young children in overcoming these challenges. This is supported by illustrative examples from one of the books digitized as part of the SAYL project.