Abstract
Purpose
By methodologically reviewing the literature on Technology-Assisted Reading Instruction (TARI) for English Language Learners (ELLs) in K-12 settings, this study aims to advance the knowledge of TARI research and guide future research directions.
Design/Approach/Methods
This study examines 32 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2020. Each article was analyzed for research objectives, reading skills, learner demographics and contexts, theoretical frameworks, research designs, and outcomes.
Findings
A review of the literature reveals a strong focus on evaluating the efficacy of TARI through summative assessments, but limited attention to learners’ literacy practices and interactive engagement in digital contexts. Additionally, there is a marked lack of alternative approaches to assessing the effectiveness of technology in promoting ELLs’ reading progression and a continued emphasis on developing traditional literacy over multimodal literacy. TARI can enhance reading motivation, foster collaborative learning, provide scaffolding, improve reading performance, and expand semiotic resources.
Originality/Value
As one of the first comprehensive methodological reviews of TARI, this study elucidates ELL reading education in the era of multiliteracy. Results have implications for technology-mediated education, which expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords
Recent technological breakthroughs have revolutionized how knowledge is constructed, negotiated, and exchanged (Arnott, 2017). Accordingly, the scope and mode of reading activities have undergone a transformational shift, expanding beyond traditional print-based texts to encompass various modes of communication, including visual, aural, gestural, and spatial (Kress, 2003; New London Group, 1996). Consequently, readers are required to adopt the role of navigators and interpreters of multimodal information (Serafini, 2012), utilizing a diverse range of semiotic practices and resources to decode, encode, and structure meaning (Plester & Wood, 2009). Defined as the ability to derive meaning from multiple modes of communication (New London Group, 1996), multiliteracy has become a vital skill in this digital era. Therefore, it is imperative that reading instruction and learners’ repertoires of reading practices evolve to incorporate multiliteracy to enable learners to effectively interpret, evaluate, and produce meaning across various modes of communication, thereby empowering them to become successful communicators and active participants in contemporary society.
In the last decade, the digitalization and technicalization of education have significantly advanced reading instruction for English Language Learners (ELLs). Educators now have access to a plethora of tools to assist in reading instruction, including collaborative notetaking, visual and audio text supplements, and web searching (Shadiev & Yang, 2020). Research on technology-assisted reading instruction (TARI) has revealed its significant potential to promote situated (Gheytasi et al., 2015), sociable (Smythe & Neufeld, 2010), and deep learning. Moreover, multiliteracy pedagogies that incorporate TARI have been shown to benefit ELLs in terms of agency and involvement, language and literacy development, identity affirmation, and critical literacy cultivation (Rajendram, 2015). As such, TARI has the potential to help reduce the academic disparities between ELLs and non-ELLs. However, as digital learning resources become more complex, practitioners may have limited awareness of their affordances and may not fully understand how to effectively utilize TARI (Yi, 2014). Therefore, there is a need for teachers to advance knowledge in this regard.
In this review, TARI is defined as a pedagogical approach that leverages technology to support reading instruction and enables learners to explore diverse modes of meaning-making. It encompasses a range of newly emerging technologies—including touchscreen tablets, e-readers, and mobile devices—with innovative software and applications that utilize a range of semiotic resources. ELLs refer to primary and secondary-level students whose primary language is not English.
Research on technological interventions for reading instruction of ELLs has primarily focused on large-scale quantitative studies investigating the effectiveness of interventions through summative assessment (Cheung & Slavin, 2011). However, these studies tend to overlook critical aspects of implementation, including the perceptions and experiences of learners, teachers, practitioners, and parents. Investigations of the methodological choices made in these studies are also limited. In addition to providing a comprehensive understanding of the current state of the art in TARI research and guiding future research directions, a methodological review may furnish researchers with the opportunity to critically evaluate the robustness of their studies. This review also provides instructors with an expanded and informed pedagogical repertoire of TARI for ELLs.
This systematic review analyzes the methodological features of research on TARI for ELLs in K-12 contexts with the aim of enhancing the quality of TARI research and facilitating informed discussions about its implementation. This review is guided by the following research questions:
What are the key research characteristics of studies on TARI for ELLs in terms of research goals, reading skills, theoretical frameworks, learner demographics, and research design? What patterns emerge in the use of technology in TARI for ELLs across the reviewed studies?
Methodology
Literature search
We conducted an initial search for empirical articles written in English and published in peer-reviewed journals between January 2000 and April 2020, using three databases, namely, the Education Research Information Center (ERIC), Web of Science Core Collection, and PsycINFO, which provide extensive education research literature for educators, researchers, and the general public. The chosen timeframe reflects the significant growth in the field since 2000, largely due to the increased use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education. Combinations of the following keywords were used: (English language learner OR bilingual OR multilingual), (technology OR multimodal OR multimedia), and (reading OR new literacy OR digital literacy) not (tertiary OR university). We also retrieved the first 100 returns on Google Scholar that contained these terms in the title or abstract. The search yielded 274 relevant studies.
Articles were screened according to three inclusion criteria: (a) studies that specifically outlined interventions or practices related to improving reading for ELLs, (b) studies reporting both the implementation and effects of TARI, and (c) studies situated in K-12 contexts. After careful examination of the abstracts and methods sections of each article, 39 studies were selected for further screening. At the full-text level, we excluded studies with special education students or those in after-school settings because our primary focus was on classroom reading instruction for the general ELL population. We also eliminated studies that emphasized content knowledge or skills other than reading, and those in which reading was a tangential topic. Ultimately, a total of 32 articles were included in this review. All of the eligible studies were published between 2004 and April 2020.
Analysis
This review applies thematic analysis (TA), which is a useful tool for helping researchers analyze materials through a particular conceptual lens and summarize key features in a well-structured manner (Braun & Clarke, 2012). Each article was imported into NVivo, a qualitative data analysis software package, as a unit of analysis. We created seven superordinate categories to organize our analysis: (a) TARI description, (b) theoretical framework, (c) participant characteristics and context (e.g., number of participants, age, and language proficiency), (d) research purpose, (e) research method, (f) data sources, and (g) key findings (see Table 1 for a detailed overview). Author 1 was responsible for the initial coding and Author 2 assisted in finalizing the coding scheme. We then followed an iterative analytic strategy by repeatedly reading the codes and sections of the sources to develop subcategories within the superordinate categories. For instance, the category of “TARI description” had the sub-categories of “digital reading platforms,” “multimodal storytelling,” and “assistive technology,” while the category of “data sources” had sub-categories of “classroom observations,” “student self-reports,” and “standardized reading assessments.” Themes were grouped and finalized to ensure that they fully addressed the research questions. Disagreements were resolved by revisiting the original studies to confirm that the results were representative.
Summary of key features and findings of selected studies.
Results
Research characteristics
Research purposes
Analysis revealed that the bulk of research on TARI focused on investigating its effectiveness, while neglecting the contextual experiences of learners and instructors with technology. Of the 32 studies, 21 evaluated the effects of technology integration on ELLs’ reading using summative assessment. Within this subset, seven studies also explored potential factors that could influence reading performance, such as usage conditions, linguistic background, gender, cognitive styles, and motivation, while five studies examined learners’ attitudes toward technology. However, little attention was given to learners’ literacy practices and interactive responses to digital tools and texts, with only nine studies capturing such information and one study exclusively reporting learners’ attitudes and perceptions. Teachers’ practices and/or perceptions regarding the integration of technology into the curriculum were briefly discussed in only three studies.
Focus on reading skills
The predominant use of technology was to mediate access to traditional literature. Most studies (N = 18) focused solely on developing print-based reading skills, with reading comprehension taking precedence, followed by reading fluency and vocabulary. Although eight studies implied their intention to enhance learners’ multiliteracies by emphasizing situated and transformed practices, only six explicitly stated that their objective was to improve learners’ skills in terms of digital literacy, new literacies, multiliteracy, and “multimodal literacy.” The focus on leveraging the affordances of digital resources primarily to strengthen basic literacy skills is consistent with Lankshear and Knobel's (2003) argument that technology is frequently harnessed to foster “abilities to handle conventional alphabetic print texts rather than to generate multimodal text and to understand principles of making multimodal meanings” (p. 77).
Theoretical frameworks
The reviewed articles demonstrated a strong reliance on learning theories and theories of language and meaning to guide TARI research. However, not all of the articles explicitly state their theoretical frameworks. Of the reviewed articles, ten employed the cognitive theory of multimedia learning or duo-coding to investigate how multimedia texts featuring both visual and auditory components could help promote reading (Mayer, 2014). Five studies applied the situated learning approach, which embraces sociocultural and constructivist views of learning, to explore how learners interact with digital resources, and how technology creates authentic learning environments that contextualize multimodal texts. Two studies utilized the collaborative learning approach, which emphasizes joint intellectual efforts with peer learning supervised by instructors, to examine factors affecting learners’ technical and non-technical reading development. Two studies used multimodal theory to explore the impact of digital storytelling and multimodal picture books on learners’ new literacy, engagement, self-reflexivity, and forms of meaning making. Several studies also applied sociocultural theory, sociosemiotic theory, dialogism, the semantic approach, and the whole-language approach to reading.
Learner demographic characteristics and research contexts
In terms of language proficiency, four studies included participants with varying proficiency levels, while three studies focused on learners at the beginner level, two at the intermediate level, and two at the fluent level. Although most studies (N = 21) did not report the participants’ linguistic proficiency, they typically provided relevant information regarding learners’ prior learning experiences. The research predominantly focused on ELLs in elementary school settings (N = 19), with ELLs in kindergarten, middle, and high schools found to be relatively overlooked. Regarding participants’ first language (L1) backgrounds, of the 17 US-based studies, four focused on students with various L1 backgrounds and speakers of Spanish, Korean, and Chinese were studied more frequently than the other language groups. In EFL settings, learners in countries/regions like Iran, Canada, and Chinese Taiwan were examined more frequently.
Research design
Twelve studies employed quantitative designs to investigate whether TARI could enhance learners’ reading performance. Some also tracked reading rates and decoding patterns to examine their relationship with test results. Eight of the selected studies used experimental designs. Excluding a study which did not report specific numbers, sample sizes ranged from 3 to 282, with a median sample size of 34.
Nine studies employed qualitative designs with a focus on ELLs’ technology-mediated literacy practices and attitudes; of these, some examined the perspectives of teachers and/or parents. Observations, interviews, and artifacts were the most commonly used data sources. Thematic or content analysis was frequently applied to explore how students interacted with technology, how TARI built on students’ existing knowledge and skills, and how teachers supported their learning. Comparative and discourse analyses were used to investigate the affordances and constraints of the technology applied, as well as the social, cultural, and instructional contexts that influenced students’ meaning-making. Sample sizes ranged from 6 to 21.
Eleven studies adopted mixed-method designs prioritizing learners’ reflective thoughts and the outcomes of their experiences with TARI, with less emphasis on documenting their literacy practices. Researchers frequently used interview transcript data, focus group notes, survey responses, documents, and reading test scores. Although survey data were often analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods, researchers seldom identified their analytical framework. Sample sizes ranged from 11 to 134.
Roles of technology
Various types of TARI techniques have been applied, including digital reading platforms offering e-books, tag-based reading systems, annotation systems, multimodal presentation systems, and visual-syntactic text formatting. Educational applications like storytelling, interactive presentations, word boxes, interactive whiteboards, and assistive technologies (e.g., speech-to-text and speech recognition) have also been employed for TARI. Providing a range of options for educators to support ELLs in reading instruction, such TARI technologies have the potential to enhance learners’ reading motivation, engagement, self-efficacy, and learning satisfaction; promote collaborative learning; provide scaffolding for reading competencies and language skills; and expand students’ semiotic repertoires. The results of some studies suggest that well-planned and well-executed TARI can help students develop confidence in their ability to read and produce digital texts. However, two studies found no significant differences in learners’ decoding patterns, time-on-task, or comprehension performance with the implementation of TARI.
A significant barrier to leveraging the enormous potential of TARI is the lack of relevant training for educators. Teachers need additional support regarding how to use, deploy, and manage these devices, as well as how to equip students with the skills necessary to make technology a facilitator of their literacy development. As such, it is necessary to address the challenges to making TARI a pedagogic transformation rather than merely an enrichment, as well as obstacles to making technology more accessible and cultivating community support.
Discussion and suggestions
In the reviewed literature, technology was primarily utilized to teach traditional reading skills like comprehension, reading fluency, and vocabulary. Although ELLs engage in various web-mediated literacy activities outside the classroom, such as interpreting and producing blogs and videos (Lisenbee et al., 2020), there is limited empirical research on their multiliteracy activities and how diverse semiotic resources contribute to their comprehension of multimodal texts. This reflects the prevalence of the “autonomous” approach toward literacy (Street & Street, 1984), which prioritizes print literacy (Papert, 1993) and marginalizes non-linguistic semiotic resources within pedagogic discourses (Smythe & Neufeld, 2010). This phenomenon can be attributed to various factors, including the separation between “digital time” and “class time” (Smythe & Neufeld, 2010), technical constraints within schools (Martin-Beltrán et al., 2017), and instructors’ lack of support in terms of applying digital tools and establishing a high-quality digital space for ELLs (Martin-Beltrán et al., 2017). Future TARI studies should explore new opportunities for fostering ELLs’ multiliteracy through technology (Lisenbee et al., 2020), particularly through interactive, constructive, and inquiry-based activities such as podcast production and digital storytelling.
The reliance on standardized test scores to evaluate the effectiveness of TARI emerged as a common theme across many studies. As Anderson and Kachorsky (2019) note, this approach to assessment tends to align with autonomous and standard-based views of literacy that fail to capture the multidimensional nature of reading, including participation, multilingual communication, content creation, problem-solving, and collaboration. To address this limitation, researchers should explore alternative assessment techniques that measure learners’ complex competencies and align with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), such as embedded and portfolio assessments (Office of Educational Technology, 2015). In doing so, TARI research will move beyond the narrow focus on standardized test scores and facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of technology on literacy development.
Although a few studies have investigated the affective states and attitudes of ELLs towards TARI, there is a need for more comprehensive research in this area to explain how digital content is communicated to learners and how the specific qualities of digital programs, including semiotic resources, impact interaction in the digital space. Such research could foster a better understanding of the intricate relationship between affective and attitudinal factors and TARI, ultimately helping to improve the design of educational digital tools and enhance the quality of learners’ experiences.
This review also found a high reliance on quantitative research designs to evaluate the effectiveness of TARI. While quantitative research is essential, the inclusion of qualitative research based on ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews could provide valuable insights into how learners use these devices and uncover new possibilities for interaction (Livingstone & Sefton-Green, 2016). Combining data from both quantitative and qualitative research could help researchers capture the complexities of learning processes in digital scenarios, such as the quality of communication and collaboration, forms of involvement, and the challenges of inequalities. Additionally, a better understanding of learner demographics could inform the development of personalized learning experiences in digital contexts and shed light on how diverse communities engage with these resources.
The current state of affairs calls for enhancing teachers’ capacities to teach digital literacy (Jones et al., 2021), implementing multiliteracy pedagogies (Mourão, 2015), and raising teachers’ awareness of the potential of technology (Gee & Hayes, 2011). Therefore, teachers should be encouraged to explore the pedagogical possibilities of digital technologies and carefully weigh their advantages and disadvantages. Several research directions have been identified to equip teachers with the knowledge necessary to prepare students for future literacy demands, including exploring teachers’ pedagogical roles and practices; promoting collaboration among teachers, administrators, and researchers in support of multimodal education; and developing teacher education programs to empower teachers to act as transformative agents. Nonetheless, it is worth emphasizing that technology is not a panacea (White & Gillard, 2011). Effective TARI implementation necessarily involves extensive research by designers and researchers, meticulous lesson planning and curricular integration by instructors, and systematic planning by the administration (Martin-Beltrán et al., 2017; Sindoni & Moschini, 2021).
Implications
This methodological review synthesized research on TARI for ELLs in the K-12 context. While the results are not intended to be exhaustive, they are significant for technology-mediated reading instruction, which flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to be of interest to researchers, instructors, and policymakers. As one of the first comprehensive reviews on TARI for ELLs, this study elucidates the current state of research on this topic and highlights key limitations, such as the narrow research scope. In addition to exploring and utilizing different methodologies and approaches, future studies should investigate how multilingual learners interact with technology, teachers’ understanding of multimodalities and pedagogical practices, and alternative assessment methods. These results have practical implications for both teachers and policymakers. Teachers can broaden their approaches to multiliteracy instruction by incorporating the techniques and strategies suggested in this review into their teaching toolkits. Meanwhile, policymakers should use these results to inform the development of effective strategies to support teachers in TARI and improve multiliteracy instruction for ELLs.
Footnotes
Contributorship
Xinyue Zuo conceived the original idea, searched and screened the literature, and conducted the first round of analysis. She was also responsible for writing the abstract and the bulk of the main body, finalizing the paper, and responding to the reviewers’ comments. Denise Ives contributed by finalizing the coding schema, discussing emerging findings, providing critical feedback, and helping shape the design, analysis, and manuscript.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article
