Vol. 16 No. 1 (2025)
Special Issue: Spatial Humanities and Contemporary Geographical Approaches

LitSpatz: An App for Literary Walks to Promote and Record Primary Students' Text Comprehension, Perspective Taking and Related Skills

Nora Heyne
University of Bamberg, Department of Educational Research, Germany
Maximilian Pfost
University of Bamberg, Department of Educational Research, Germany
Peter Kuntner
University of Bamberg, Department of Educational Research, Germany
Screen with a site map of the place of the scene with instructions how to get there (translation of the shown text: To see what happens next, go to station  on the map, to the Upper Bridge, and click on WEITER!) with similar display contents for a. on-site version via mobile phone and b. off-site version via PC (Buttons at the bottom of the display allow to go back [button Zurück] or continue in the app [button Weiter]).

Published 2025-01-20

Keywords

  • text comprehension,
  • spatial and affective perspective taking,
  • reading and listing motivation,
  • walk-in story,
  • primary students

How to Cite

Heyne, Nora, Maximilian Pfost, and Peter Kuntner. 2025. “LitSpatz: An App for Literary Walks to Promote and Record Primary Students’ Text Comprehension, Perspective Taking and Related Skills”. European Journal of Geography 16 (1):s64-s74. https://doi.org/10.48088/ejg.si.spat.hum.n.hey.64.74.
Received 2024-10-09
Accepted 2025-01-20
Published 2025-01-20

Abstract

Teaching listening and reading skills including abilities to adopt spatial and affective perspectives of literary figures and to reflect critically on texts regarding one's own world are central goals of primary school education in Germany, Europe, and beyond. However, many primary school students fail to achieve minimum standards in these skills. To support students in developing these skills and to record their current skill levels, the LitSpatz application was developed. It refers to previous findings on children's cognitive and affective-motivational development, approaches of effective reading instruction, and selected approaches of geographical education. Within this app, primary students are offered the opportunity to take part in literary walks through the city of Bamberg (Germany), either on-site or off-site. Therein, a walk-in story is presented auditorily. Furthermore, illustrations or references to authentic locations are displayed to visualize the scenes' settings and cognitively activating and further questions are asked. The study aims to present the app and initial evaluation data from its use in virtual literary walks (off-site) by children (N = 52) in reading classrooms. In particular, students' characteristics and abilities in relation to text comprehension and aspects of perspective taking (spatial and affective perspective taking, transportation, empathic text comprehension) are explored. Additionally, findings show high levels of listening motivation and enjoyment when using the app. Experiences and results from the use of the app are discussed with respect to future steps regarding its use on-site, the evaluation of its impact, and possibilities for implementing further geospatial technologies.

Highlights:

  • Development of the LitSpatz app as a tool for promoting and recording students´ text comprehension and related skills.
  • App enables primary students to participate in (virtual) literary walks to achieve learning goals in listening and reading.
  • Preliminary results on students' text comprehension, related skills and enjoyment in using the app in classrooms.

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