Currently browsing: Items authored or edited by Natalia Kucirkova https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2805-1745

Kucirkova, Natalia and Ciesielska, Marta (2025). The Distance Between the Story Character and the Reader: Evidencing the Impact of Familiarity in Children’s Storybooks. Reading Psychology, 46(2) pp. 133–170.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 4MB)

Kucirkova, Natalia Ingebretsen (2025). Olfaction in Early Childhood Research and Practice: How the Study of Smell Charts New Frontiers in Early Education. London, UK: Routledge.

Kucirkova, Natalia and Bubikova-Moan, Jarmila (2024). Parent-Child Mealtime Conversations Stimulated with Decorated Tableware. Early Childhood Education Journal (Early Access).

• Download Published Version (PDF / 696kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Cremin, Teresa (2024). Funds of courage: advancing social justice in children’s reading for pleasure. Cambridge Journal of Education, 54(4) pp. 437–454.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 1MB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2024). The explanatory power of sensory reading for early childhood research: The role of hidden senses. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood (Early access).

• Download Published Version (PDF / 322kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Hiniker, Alexis (2024). Parents’ ontological beliefs regarding the use of conversational agents at home: resisting the neoliberal discourse. Learning, Media and Technology, 49(2) pp. 290–305.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 1MB)

Kucirkova, Natalia; Livingstone, Sonia and Radesky, Jenny (2024). Advancing the understanding of children’s digital engagement: responsive methodologies and ethical considerations in psychological research. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, article no. 1285302.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 288kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia Ingebretsen (2024). [Book Review] David Howes, Sensorium: contextualizing the senses and cognition in history and across cultures.Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2024. The Senses and Society (Early access).

Kucirkova, Natalia and Rodriguez-Leon, Lucy (2023). Multisensory Reading in Early Childhood: Systematic Review with Theoretical Guidance for Human Development Studies. Human Development, 67(4) pp. 193–210.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 356kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Mwenda Chinula, Neema (2023). Olfactoscapes in Malawi: Exploring the smells children like and are exposed to in semi-urban classrooms. Childhood: A journal of global child research, 30(4) pp. 451–470.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 706kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Leaton Gray, Sandra (2023). Beyond Personalization: Embracing Democratic Learning Within Artificially Intelligent Systems. Educational Theory, 73(4) pp. 469–489.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 368kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2023). Digital Edible Literacies: Ephemeral and Highly Affective. Reading Research Quarterly, 58 pp. 495–504.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 796kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia; Brod, Garvin and Gaab, Nadine (2023). Applying the science of learning to EdTech evidence evaluations using the EdTech Evidence Evaluation Routine (EVER). npj Science of Learning, 8, article no. 35.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 444kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2023). Debate: Response to “Should academics collaborate with digital companies to improve young people's mental health”. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 28(2) pp. 336–337.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 77kB)

Brod, Garvin; Kucirkova, Natalia; Shepherd, Joshua; Jolles, Dietsje and Molenaar, Inge (2023). Agency in Educational Technology: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Implications for Learning Design. Educational Psychology Review, 35(1), article no. 25.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 704kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2023). Commentary on Highly Successful Female Educational Psychologists: Equity and Intersectionality in Success Definitions. Educational Psychology Review, 35(7)

• Download Published Version (PDF / 577kB)

Cremin, Teresa; Hendry, Helen; Rodriguez-Leon, Lucy and Kucirkova, Natalia (2023). Reading Teachers: Nurturing Reading for Pleasure. Abingdon: Routledge.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2023). Reflecting on my reader identity. In: Cremin, Teresa; Hendry, Helen; Rodriguez-Leon, Lucy and Kucirkova, Natalia eds. Reading Teachers: Nurturing Reading for Pleasure. London: Routledge, pp. 13–15.

Cremin, Teresa; Hendry, Helen; Rodriguez-Leon, Lucy and Kucirkova, Natalia (2023). Conclusion : Reading Teachers of tomorrow. In: Cremin, Teresa; Hendry, Helen; Rodriguez-Leon, Lucy and Kucirkova, Natalia eds. Reading Teachers. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 193–197.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Lungenmuss-Ward, Nigel and Mansfield-Neimi, Nicola (2023). Digital books enriching children's literacy lives. In: Cremin, Teresa; Hendry, Helen; Rodriguez-Leon, Lucy and Kucirkova, Natalia eds. Reading Teachers: Nurturing Reading for Pleasure. London: Routledge, pp. 35–44.

Kucirkova, Natalia I.; Livingstone, Sonia and Radesky, Jenny S. (2023). Faulty screen time measures hamper national policies: here is a way to address it. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, article no. 1243396.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 125kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia; Rodriguez Leon, Lucy and Chinula, Neema Mwenda (2023). Rethinking Agency in Literacies: Malawian children’s and teachers’ perspectives. International Journal of Early Years Education (Early access).

• Download Published Version (PDF / 2MB)

Ingebretsen Kucirkova, Natalia (2023). Tracing the smells of childhoods with an olfactory research inquiry. Qualitative Research, 24(4) pp. 1042–1066.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 1MB)

Kucirkova, Natalia I. and Speed, Laura J. (2023). Children’s multisensory experiences in museums: how olfaction interacts with color. Frontiers in Education, 8, article no. 1242708.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 982kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Rowsell, Jennifer (2022). Living with digital materialisations of self. Learning, Media and Technology, 47(3) pp. 305–309.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2021). The Educational Power—and the Limits—of Personalized Children’s Books.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2021). Digital Personalized Learning: Conceptualization, Operationalization and Impact. In: The 19th Biennial EARLI Conference, 23.08.2021-27.08.2021, Online.

(2021). A Comparison of Children’s Reading on Paper Versus Screen: A Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 91(4) pp. 483–517.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 760kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Bus, Adriana (2021). A Comparison of Children’s Reading on Paper versus Screen: A Meta-analysis conference presentation. In: Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Annual Meeting, 13-16 Jul 2021, Online.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2021). The Digitized and Quantified "You": Where Is Our Agency? In: Devon, Frye ed. Psychology Today.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2021). Socio-material directions for developing empirical research on children’s e-reading: A systematic review and thematic synthesis of the literature across disciplines. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 21(1) pp. 148–174.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 312kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2021). The Future of the Self: Understanding Personalization in Childhood and Beyond. Emerald Books.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Gerard, Libby and Linn, Marcia C. (2021). Designing personalised instruction: A research and design framework. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(5) pp. 1839–1861.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 2MB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Cremin, Teresa (2021). Reciprocal reading for pleasure in online and offline reading communities. In: UKLA International Conference, 2-4 Jul 2021, Online.

Kucirkova, Natalia and Cremin, Teresa (2021). Peering out the children’s literature window into children’s engagement with multimedia texts. In: International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature International Conference, 23-26 Jun 2021, Online.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2021). What is next for children who grew up with the personalisation revolution?

Kucirkova, Natalia (2020). Why Fathers Who Read to Their Children Are the Coolest.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2020). Next Time We Zoom, Show Me Your Hands.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2020). A Time Without Touch Is an Opportunity to Rethink Its Place. In: Huston, Matt ed. Not Set

Kucirkova, Natalia and Cremin, Teresa (2020). Children Reading for Pleasure in the Digital Age: Mapping Reader Engagement. SAGE.

Kucirkova, Natalia and Hoel, Trude (2020). The silver lining in corona times: video-call shared reading with children. In: Livingstone, Sonia ed. Not Set

Kucirkova, Natalia (2020). And a Selfie Must Follow, as the Night the Day. In: Huston, Matt ed. Not Set

Kucirkova, Natalia and Mackey, Margaret (2020). Digital literacies and children’s personalized books: Locating the 'self'. London Review of Education, 18(2) pp. 151–162.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 515kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Littleton, Karen (2020). The Distance between the 'Self' and the 'Other' in Children's Digital Books. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, article no. 589281.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 735kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2020). Digital Shadows Remain Even if You Can't See Them.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2019). Children’s reading with digital books: past moving quickly to the future. Child Development Perspectives, 13(4) pp. 208–214.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 489kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2019). Children’s agency by design: Design parameters for personalization in story-making apps. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 21 pp. 112–120.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 495kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David J. and Sheehy, Kieron (2019). Investigating the effectiveness of the Our Story App to increase children’s narrative skills: Lessons learnt from one English preschool classroom. In: Veneziano, Edy and Nicolopoulou, Ageliki eds. Narrative, Literacy and Other Skills: Studies in intervention. Studies in Narrative (25). John Benjamins, pp. 265–281.

Critten, Valerie and Kucirkova, Natalia (2019). ‘It Brings it all Back, all those Good Times; it Makes Me Go Close to Tears’. Creating Digital Personalised Stories with People who have Dementia. Dementia, 18(3) pp. 864–881.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 822kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2019). How Could Children’s Storybooks Promote Empathy? A Conceptual Framework Based on Developmental Psychology and Literary Theory. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, article no. 00121.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 2MB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2018). How and Why to Read and Create Children's Digital books: A Guide for Primary Practitioners. UCL Press.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 8MB)

Messer, David; Thomas, Lucy; Holliman, Andrew and Kucirkova, Natalia (2018). Evaluating the effectiveness of an educational programming intervention on children’s mathematics skills, spatial awareness and working memory. Education and Information Technologies, 23(6) pp. 2879–2888.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 540kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia; Littleton, Karen and Kyparissiadis, Antonios (2018). The influence of children’s gender and age on children’s use of digital media at home. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(3) pp. 545–559.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 523kB)

Cremin, Teresa; Flewitt, Rosie; Swann, Joan; Faulkner, Dorothy and Kucirkova, Natalia (2018). Storytelling and story-acting: co-construction in action. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 16(1) pp. 3–17.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 310kB)

FitzGerald, Elizabeth; Kucirkova, Natalia; Jones, Ann; Cross, Simon; Ferguson, Rebecca; Herodotou, Christothea; Hillaire, Garron and Scanlon, Eileen (2018). Dimensions of personalisation in technology-enhanced learning: a framework and implications for design. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(1) pp. 165–181.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 169kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Cremin, Teresa (2018). Personalised reading for pleasure with digital libraries: Towards a pedagogy of practice and design. Cambridge Journal of Education, 48(5) pp. 571–589.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 521kB)

FitzGerald, Elizabeth; Jones, Ann; Kucirkova, Natalia and Scanlon, Eileen (2018). A literature synthesis of personalised technology-enhanced learning: what works and why. Research in Learning Technology, 26, article no. 2095.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 1MB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Cremin, Teresa (2017). How can digital library systems help teachers support-children's reading for pleasure.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 147kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Littleton, Karen (2017). Digital learning hubs: theoretical and practical ideas for innovating massive open online courses. Learning, Media and Technology, 42(3) pp. 324–330.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Littleton, Karen and Cremin, Teresa (2017). Young children’s reading for pleasure with digital books: six key facets of engagement. Cambridge Journal of Education, 47(1) pp. 67–84.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 475kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia and Littleton, Karen (2017). Developing personalised education for personal mobile technologies with the pluralisation agenda. Oxford Review of Education, 43(3) pp. 276–288.

• Download Accepted Manuscript (PDF / 430kB)

Messer, David and Kucirkova, Natalia (2016). Digital and new technologies: Research tools and questions. In: Prior, Jess and Van Herwegen, Jo eds. Practical Research with Children. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 264–284.

Critten, Val and Kucirkova, Natalia (2016). Digital Personal Stories: A Case Study of Two African Adolescents, with Severe Learning and Communication Disabilities. Journal of childhood and developmental disorders, 1(1), article no. 7.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 906kB)

Kucirkova, Natalia; Sheehy, Kieron and Messer, David (2015). A Vygotskian perspective on parent-child talk during iPad story sharing. Journal of Research in Reading, 38(4) pp. 428–441.

Kucirkova, N. and Sakr, M. (2015). Child-Father creative text-making at home with crayons, iPad, collage & PC. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 17 pp. 59–73.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2015). Book Review: The thinking teacher. Journal of Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy, 41(4) pp. 451–452.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2015). Towards truly transformative technology-enhanced education. In: Using Technology in Education, Westminster Education Forum, pp. 75–77.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2015). Story-Making with iPad Apps: Baking Stories in the 21st Century. Exchange

Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David; Critten, Val and Harwood, Jane (2014). Story-making on the iPad when children have complex needs: two case studies. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 36(1) pp. 44–54.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David and Sheehy, Kieron (2014). The effects of personalization on young children's spontaneous speech during shared book reading. Journal of Pragmatics, 71 pp. 45–55.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2014). iPads in early years, separating assumptions and evidence. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, article no. 715.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Willans, Deb and Cremin, Teresa (2014). Spot the Dog; with iPads: spot the difference! English 4-11, 51 pp. 11–14.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David and Sheehy, Kieron (2014). Reading personalized books with preschool children enhances their word acquisition. First Language, 34(3) pp. 227–243.

Kucirkova, Natalia and Tompkins, Virginia (2014). Personalization in mother-child emotion talk across three contexts. Infant and Child Development, 23(2) pp. 153–169.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David; Sheehy, Kieron and Fernandez-Panadero, Carmen (2014). Children's engagement with educational iPad apps: insights from a Spanish classroom. Computers & Education, 71 pp. 175–184.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2014). iPads in early years and foundation classrooms. Teach Nursery, 5(1)

Flewitt, Rosie; Kucirkova, Natalia and Messer, David (2014). Touching the virtual, touching the real: iPads and enabling literacy for students with learning disabilities. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 37(2) pp. 107–116.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2014). iPads and Tablets in the Classroom: Personalising Children’s Stories. Minibook, 41. Leicester: UKLA.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2014). How can iPad apps enrich psychology research? Psychology Teaching Review, 20(2) pp. 121–125.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2013). Children interacting with books on iPads: research chapters still to be written. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, article no. 995.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David; Sheehy, Kieron and Flewitt, Rosie (2013). Sharing personalized stories on iPads: a close look at one parent-child interaction. Literacy, 47(3) pp. 115–122.

Cremin, Teresa; Swann, Joan; Flewitt, Rosie; Faulkner, Dorothy and Kucirkova, Natalia (2013). Evaluation Report of MakeBelieve Arts Helicopter Technique of Storytelling and Storyacting.

• Download Published Version (PDF / 5MB)

Kucirkova, Natalia (2013). iPads in early education. Early Years Educator, 14(9) pp. 24–26.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David and Whitelock, Denise (2012). Parents reading with their toddlers: the role of personalisation in book engagement. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 13(4) pp. 445–470.

Kucirkova, Natalia; Messer, David and Sheehy, Kieron (2012). Deti ako autori vlastnych kniziek na ipadoch: Hl'Adanie strednej cesty(Children as authors of their own iPad books: searching for a balance. In: Miňová, Monika ed. Predprimárne vzdelávanie v súčasnosti. Presove, Slovakia: Presovska univerzita v Presove, Pedagogic fakulta. Slovensky vybor Svetovej organizacie pre predskolsku vychovu, pp. 285–298.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2012). Our Story - Eine App zur Herstellung von Bilderund Geschichtenbüchern [Our Story - an app for creating digital picture books]. In: Brinkmann, Erika and Valtin, Renate eds. Lesen- und Schreibenlernen mit digitalen Medien [Reading and writing learning with digital media]. Berlin: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Lesen und Schreiben, pp. 92–101.

Kucirkova, Natalia (2011). Parents' and Childrens' Engagement When Sharing Personalised Books. Master of Research (MRes) thesis The Open University.

• Download Final Version (PDF / 5MB)

(2010). Sharing personalised books: a practical solution to the challenges posed by home book reading interventions. Literacy Information & Computer Education Journal, 1(3) pp. 263–272.

• Published Version (PDF) This file is not available for public download
• Unspecified Version (PDF) This file is not available for public download