| With a recent increase in technology access in America's schools and combined with No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) charge to ensure that every child is literate by third grade, schools have been using technology tools to teach students the foundational skills to become fluid and able readers. This study examined the use of mobile device reading interventions in the kindergarten classroom. Essentially this study included 292 kindergarten students who received varying amounts of mobile device reading interventions specifically created for the school district where the study took place.;In an attempt to fill a void of the lack of quantitative research using mobile devices in the primary grades, this causal comparative research design study used analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between those students who used mobile device reading interventions and those who received traditional reading interventions.;The data analysis revealed similar findings uncovered in the researcher's literature review for computer-assisted instruction. Essentially, when the mobile device reading intervention students were compared with the traditional reading intervention students, the students who used the mobile devices statistically outperformed the others on the DIBELS Word Use Fluency (p=.037), Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (p=.005), and Nonsense Word Fluency (p=.015). Also the females that used the mobile devices statistically outperformed the males who used the mobile devices in Word Use Fluency (p=.038).;When the varying amounts of mobile device use (no use, some use and many use) were compared, the data revealed a similar trend. Those students in the many use category statistically outperformed the students in the some category on all the DIBELS mid-year sub-tests (ISF -- p=.000, LNF -- p=.000, WUF -- p=.008, PSF -- p=.000, NWF -- p=.000). There also was a significant finding when the many use category was compared with the none category in LNF (p=.044), PSF (p=.000), and NWF (p=.000). Next, when the data was analyzed between the none and some categories, those students in the none range statistically performed better in LNF (p=.000), PSF (p=.013), and NWF (p=.000).;The implications of these findings suggest that the use of mobile devices can effectively teach kindergarten students the foundational skills to become fluent and able readers. However, the students in this study fared better when they used the mobile devices either a lot or not at all. |
