eBooks, Apps, and Literacy Instruction—Making Informed Choices

The Reading Teacher, 2014

With adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) virtually the whole of the United States is involved in aligning curricula, lesson planning, implementing, and professional development. However, only a small fraction of CCSS activity or commentary focuses on early childhood education at the preschool and kindergarten levels. Thus, it is crucial to examine closely the links between the standards themselves and applications in practice so that teachers and administrative personnel have a clear understanding of both what the standards imply and do not imply for aligning classroom practices to accomplish the CCSS in early childhood. This article focuses on clarifying issues that have been especially subject to confusion or misinterpretation with respect to curricular and instructional practices in preschool and kindergarten. It begins with a brief account of alignments between the CCSS and developmentally appropriate practices currently common in early language and literacy instruction and supported by research, followed by in-depth analyses of four issues that have generated some or considerable confusion for early childhood educators: pedagogical approach, text choices, understanding developmental progressions, and performance assessment.

With adoption of the Common

2013

e-Books share some key features with traditional printed picture books, but also include distinct features such as live animation, interactive components, and the operation of the technology that require new approaches to shared reading with young children. The purpose of this paper is to better inform adults working with young children (teachers, child care providers, and parents) of important factors to consider when choosing and sharing e-books with young children. We discuss why to share e-books with young children; types of e-books and how to evaluate them; how adults can best support young children's language and literacy development through shared readings of e-books, including examples of shared readings of an e-book with young children; and an exploration of the potential of e-books to support meaningful interactions around texts.

The purpose of this investigation will be to describe how, when provided access and instruction, early elementary teachers use ebooks to support learning in the classroom. The teachers in this study represent kindergarten, first and second grade teachers from three suburban districts in the Midwest region of the United States. There is a high likelihood that ebooks will become an integral piece of the early childhood classrooms within the next 3 to 5 years. Currently, there is a limited research that explores their potential impact for curriculum and instruction. The study will focus on the instructional practices and techniques early elementary teachers use with ebooks to support learning, perceived personal and professional indicators teachers use for selecting high-quality ebooks for use in their classroom, and the challenges and opportunities early elementary teachers experience. These understandings will be pursued through a qualitative basic interpretive process in an effort to describe the experiences of participants in ebook-equipped classrooms. This qualitative approach will use the TPACK framework to investigate the process that occurs as teachers adapt their pedagogical approaches to use ebooks to support learning in the early elementary classroom. The findings from this study indicated the following three major themes: (a) early elementary teachers using ebooks extend and adapt familiar practices to support learning; (b) early elementary teachers select ebooks for use in their classroom based on genre, content area connections, and digital features that enhance literary content; and (c) the opportunities of ebooks for instruction outweigh challenges they present. This study has the potential to impact the nature of illustrating the methods and techniques used by the three participants as they merge technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge and set in motion classroom practices that integrate ebooks into the early elementary classroom to support student learning.

Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 2019

This review integrates literature on cross-disciplinary quantitative and qualitative studies related to children’s reading on screen published between January 2016 and September 2017, with a focus on the researchers’ epistemological perspectives on knowledge and learning. Johri’s (2011) framework of socio-material assemblages, which synthesises epistemological dualities, is used to examine the ways in which researchers conceptualise children’s learning with digital books. The review shows that extant empirical studies map directly onto the social part of Johri’s framework (examination of child and adult variables and behavioural characteristics) and on the material aspects of children’s digital books (examination of the book’s content and features). Only theoretical studies pay equal attention to social and material aspects in their conceptualisation of children’s reading on screen. Overall, it is recommended that in addition to cross-disciplinary and multiple methods, researchers consider socio-material assemblages to advance the field. A socio-material perspective could address time and space shifts in children’s reading on screen and might provide the springboard for future epistemological developments within the field.

One of the most important innovations that today's technology offers to the user, tablet devices have created a new media to children's picture books, as well as the fields like communication, social networks, music, games and many more. On tablet devices, children's picture books emerge as " applications ". Thanks to the possibilities offered by mobile technology, interactive book applications have brought a different dimension to children's picture books and bring in new features besides the story and illustrations in printed books. By adding sound, motion, interaction and game to the once printed and static page, these applications have begun to change the attitude of readers towards reading and our perception of what makes a book. With these features, well-designed book applications can be highly engaging for children and provide a reading experience that can't be accessed in printed books. They might open a new dimension in their imagination and can be used as a tool for learning through fun. In this study, features of the rapidly emerging interactive children's book applications such as user interface, interactivity, motion, sound and game are defined and their effect on children's reading experience is investigated on the examples of selected applications.

Computers & Education, 2015

Alphabet books are an important instructional text used in early education. Advances in mobile technology have led to alphabet books of an electronic format with accompanying sound, animations, and interactive hot spots. This study investigates the differential effectiveness of paper alphabet books and alphabet eBooks in training alphabetic knowledge in 4-year-olds. Three groups of approximately 30 children were assigned to one of three conditions: paper alphabet book, alphabet eBook, or storybook control. Book reading sessions composed of three to four children were run twice a week over eight weeks, with child-book behaviours coded at each session. Measures of early reading ability were collected pre and post-intervention. Children in all conditions improved over time in emergent literacy but no significant differences between conditions were found. Children using paper alphabet books were more likely to say letter names, and their time oriented to the books predicted post-test letter-name and phonological awareness after controlling for pre-test scores. In contrast, time oriented to the alphabet eBooks made no prediction to post-test sores.

Considering the increased influence of digital technologies on daily life and young children's increased use of interactive technologies (Children Now, 2007), early childhood educators are beginning to think about the role of technology in their classrooms. Many preschool programs are beginning to purchase iPads, or similar tablets, for classroom use. Thus, it is important to consider how iPads, or similar tablets, can be used in a developmentally appropriate manner with young children. To this end, this article describes the use of iPads in two preschool classrooms of four and five year-old children.