Flewitt, R., Messer, D., & Kucirkova, N. (2015). New directions for early literacy in a digital age: The iPad. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 15(3), 289–310.
In this article, Flewitt et al. (2015) evaluate the efficiency of modern technology for education and aim to evaluate the potential of iPads for “classroom-based early literacy learning in three different educational settings” (p. 289). For this research, iPads were offered to a Children’s Centre nursery (3-4-year-olds), a primary school Reception class (4-5-year-olds), and a Special School (7-13-year-olds) to observe how devices will be integrated (Flewitt et al., 2015). All iPads were pre-loaded with a particular app that provided an opportunity for users to record their experience. According to the data received from questionnaires distributed among education practitioners and parents, children from all settings were more engaged in traditional activities, including pretend play, building with bricks, and sharing books, rather than using new technologies. In the classrooms, they presented various attitudes in relation to iPads – while some children considered it to be a reward for completing a difficult task, others prefer devices to be used by more authoritative adults. At the same time, the most active users of digital devices were children with learning impairments.
Hardwood, D. (2017). Crayons and iPads: Learning and teaching of young children in the digital world. SAGE Swifts.
In her book, Hardwood (2017) examines how digital technologies may be used in the early stages of child development across the globe in order to improve learning techniques in classrooms. According to the author’s fundamental position, as accessible instructional tools, tablets provide multiple opportunities for efficient learning. In the present day, when online presence may be observed everywhere, the concepts of play and education have already shifted. In addition, electronic devices may provoke children’s interest in sciences and the environment – thus, multiple discoveries will be made due to modern technologies and through engagement with them since childhood. In general, Hardwood’s book provides an in-depth insight into the modern collaboration of education and digital media that is essential for its further evaluation and control if necessary.
Kucirkova, N. (2019). Children’s reading with digital books: Past moving quickly to the future. Child Development Perspectives, 13(4), 208-214. Web.
In this article, on the basis of previous researches, the author addresses the connection of parent-child engagement patterns with the choice of either digital books or print ones. In general, this paper has a considerable practical value as it aims to evaluate the impact of electronic technology that has already become an intrinsic part of people’s lives on relationships between parents and their children. According to Kucirkova (2019), three major process variables that may explain the differences between the use of digital books and reading print ones are children’s age parents’ verbal scaffolding, the congruence between a book’s narrative, and multimedia features.
Thus, the majority of studies point that when using digital books, parents focus more on technical and behavioral aspects than on the content of a story. In turn, reading print books involves more language-stimulating dialogic reading strategies instead of comments dedicated to how to hold a device and swipe pages. Moreover, parent’s perceptions and choices are frequently determined by their own preferences of either print or digital books. In addition, the choice of book is also determined by the child’s age, language, and the family’s socioeconomic status. For example, for low-income households with little history of reading, digital books have great potential. Finally, the characteristics of books, such as their quality and content, influence parents’ choice as well.
Reich, S. M., Yau, J. C., Xu, Y., Muskat, T., Uvalle, J., & Cannata, D. (2019). Digital or print? A comparison of preschoolers’ comprehension, vocabulary, and engagement from a print book and an e-book. AERA Open, 5(3), 1-16. Web.
In this article, Reich et al. (2019) compare the efficiency of both print books and e-books for education in order to understand whether the engagement, language use, and comprehension of preschool-aged children depend on whether a story is read by an adult or narrated by a digital device. In general, the expediency of this research is determined by the constantly increasing use of electronic technology even by the youngest members of society. According to a recent survey, the majority of parents who have children 0 to 8 years old reported the availability of a tablet and smartphone at home. Moreover, in the present day, electronic media has become prevalent in schools as well. That is why it is essential to evaluate its impact on children’s educational process.
Emphasizing the importance of reading and basing on the previous researches dedicated to e-books’ efficiency, the authors randomly recruited 200 children, aged 3 to 5 years, and assigned them to be read the same book by an adult from a print book and with a tablet’s auto-narration (Reich et al., 2019). According to the results, in the print condition, children, especially older ones and females, had slightly higher posttest scores. In turn, children were vocalized more in the e-book condition. In general, the main differences were based on age and gender rather than the way of reading used. Thus, although e-books cannot provide all opportunities in comparison with print books, they may be regarded as an efficient education tool as well.