Development of an Interactive Story Applying Digital Narrative for Reading Comprehension

Abstract

In the educational field, the subject of language and literature develops communicative skills, being an essential complement for comprehensive training in other areas. However, there are difficulties in reading comprehension of texts, as mentioned in a UNESCO report (2017) in which it is indicated that six out of ten children and adolescents do not reach the levels of reading proficiency. Interactive stories relate magical and emotional events, digital narratives such as storytelling add technological tools to the educational process. These pedagogical strategies allow students to participate, interact and build their meaningful learning, that is why four interactive stories were designed and applied, with adapted narratives the social environment of the students and popular legends of the region. The stories link their emotions with the characters, settings, time, space, places, strengthening reading comprehension of the texts. The methodology applied to the research is qualitative in nature, describing the narratives with language and literature themes. Storytelling and gamification were used through digital tools: Vyond, Movavi, Powtoon, VideoScribe and Filmora that were used in the construction of the stories. Their versatility allows adding real or fantastic images, editing videos with their own or adapted sounds, animations that visually and audibly attract students. The participants are students of the PCEI “Juan Jiménez” school, of the January 8 Extension, intensive upper basic cycle, with a population of 15 years and older who live in rural areas. The handling of the devices is poor, that is why the stories were designed for young people and adults with levels of basic technological knowledge. The application was made in two groups: the control group composed by students who visualized a traditional class and the experimentation group who visualized the class with the storytelling methodology, both groups with the same theme to measure the results of texts’ comprehension. The stories were exposed in the classroom prior to socialization of the methodology, with a diagnostic evaluation before their presentation and a final evaluation of the applied technique, in a class period every weekend, for a month. The results show that the applied methodology allows reaching different types of student population with characteristics typical of rural areas, fosters reading comprehension due to the visualization and interactivity in the narratives. Treating topics addressed in class with similarities to their environment links their emotions, feelings, they make the storytelling methodology in the classroom a success, contrary to the traditional class that makes difficult to understand texts and consequently the topics addressed in any course. However, it is necessary to further disseminate digital narratives in education to strengthen the learning process. The characteristics of these tools are innovative and easy to use today. It is essential to implement them in each of the educational centers, taking advantage of the resources and technological skills of the student population.

Keywords: Narratives, Environment, Gamification

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001134