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European Journal of Open Education and E-learning Studies ISSN: 2501-9120 ISSN-L: 2501-9120 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1038278 Volume 2 │ Issue 2 │ 2017 EFFECTIVENESS OF E-BOOK IN IMPROVING OMANI KINDERGARTEN KIDS COMPREHENSION AND MOTIVATION TOWARDS STORIES READING Al Musawii, A., Al Saidi, Y., Al Hosni, R., Al Saidi, H. College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman Abstract: Nowadays technology became an affective and worthy tool for learning and acquisition of knowledge. Although e-books have many facilities and tools which motivate children to read and develop their reading skills, most of the early childhood institutions in Oman are not using e-books for teaching children. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the difference between using e-books and printed books to motivate kindergarteners to read and enhancing their understanding of the text. This study compares between experimental group which use e-books and control group which use printed books. Findings show that there are no significant differences between the two groups with regard to motivation. However, children who read from paper books got better scores in the comprehension test. The study concludes with some future recommendations. Keywords: e-book, Oman, comprehension, motivation, kindergarten kids 1. Introduction Reading is priceless tool and essential instrument for lifelong learning, academic achievement and personal growth. It is important skill that must be considered in early stage because it has a critical role in helping children to acquire words and concepts and improving their language development which include reading and writing skills (Korat Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 44 Al Musawi, A., Al Saidi, Y., Al Hosni, R., Al Saidi, H. EFFECTIVENESS OF E-BOOK IN IMPROVING OMANI KINDERGARTEN KIDS COMPREHENSION AND MOTIVATION TOWARDS STORIES READING and Or, ). Moreover, reading is not only about improving child’s language; it extends to make children in love with reading (Maynard, 2010). Previously, people tend to read paper books, packages papers that are collected under one cover (Kang, Wang and Lin, 2009), and considered as a way to deliver the information from the writer to the reader. For a long time, paper books were the basic way to learn but this kind of book shows some limitations. The books' weight is considered as one of the limitations of the paper books, which leads to another disadvantage that appears in the difficulty of books portability. Moreover, the paper books need space for storage which requires in some cases to have special buildings for that purpose. In 1971, Michael S. Hart created the first e-book (Siegle, 2012) which overcame the limitations of paper books. For viewing / downloading the full article, please access the following link: https://oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejoe/article/view/1142 European Journal of Open Education and E-learning Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 2 │ 2017 45