Language abilities in the early years are a strong predictor of children's success in school. However, a considerable number of children enter school with poor language skills. Therefore, one of the most important but also challenging mandates of early childhood education and care [ECEC] is to promote these skills before school enrolment. Meta-analytic evidence suggests that shared book reading is a valuable tool to narrow this gap in the early years. In the digital age, e-books might offer new opportunities to foster language development in ECEC. This meta-analysis investigates the effectiveness of e-book interventions in comparison to regular childcare and to shared print book reading in classrooms. The systematic search, examining studies from 2000 to 2018, was carried out by two independent reviewers. A random-effect model was used to aggregate findings. Altogether, 17 studies with 30 different e-book treatments were included. Children benefited significantly more from the e-book interventions compared to regular childcare (g = 0.85). Activities with e-books were also ahead of print storybook reading in ECEC (g = 0.45). The effectiveness was mainly moderated by story repetition, number of sessions, and embeddedness in the classroom. E-books were primarily researcher-developed and included congruent functions to foster language development. Implications for practice, research and app development are discussed.

早年的语言能力是儿童在学校取得成功的有力预测因素。然而，相当多的儿童入学时语言能力较差。因此，幼儿教育和护理 [ECEC] 最重要但也具有挑战性的任务之一是在入学前提升这些技能。元分析证据表明，共享书籍阅读是早年缩小这一差距的宝贵工具。在数字时代，电子书可能会为促进 ECEC 的语言发展提供新的机会。这项荟萃分析调查了电子书干预措施与常规托儿服务和课堂上共享印刷书阅读相比的有效性。系统搜索，检查了 2000 年至 2018 年的研究，由两名独立评审员进行。随机效应模型用于汇总结果。总共纳入了 17 项研究，涉及 30 种不同的电子书处理方法。与常规托儿相比，儿童从电子书干预中获益更多（g  = 0.85）。在 ECEC 中，电子书活动也领先于印刷故事书阅读（g  = 0.45）。效果主要受故事重复、课程数量和课堂嵌入程度的影响。电子书主要是研究人员开发的，包括促进语言发展的一致功能。讨论了对实践、研究和应用程序开发的影响。