eBooks for Kids: Hurtful or Helpful for Young Readers?
It's bedtime, and your 4-year-old is tucked in and ready for her nightly story. Paperbacks are scattered around the room, and among them an eReader loaded with her favorite fairy tales. Do you reach for the worn-out copy of The Wizard of Oz from the bookshelf, or head into the interactive world of Dorothy and friends instead?
Parents today face a host of new choices at story time. They're not only choosing what to read, but how to read it. Unfamiliar territory with smart phones and electronic tablets have parents wondering—do eBooks for kids hurt or help young readers?
For parents of very young children, the "total experience" of reading includes lap-time, closeness and parental involvement. Some people are afraid that this experience will be lost with eBooks. The other big fear is that their child won't learn to read properly if exposed to eBooks. When something is unfamiliar, we are naturally wary—but are fears about e-books realistic?
Research by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that while kids are more plugged-in than ever before, reading has not lost ground to media. In fact, print book reading has actually increased over the past 10 years, despite the explosion of electronic readers on the market. And according to a study by Cambridge University, literacy rates among children have actually increased since the pre-computer age.
The march of technological progress isn't going to stop—eReaders are here to stay. So how do you know what's best for your young reader? Here are some tips:
- Educate Yourself: Know the difference between an eBook and an app. Electronic reading apps can help literacy development, but are more like games than books. A digital Alice in Wonderland is a true electronic representation of the book, with no bells and whistles, such as noises or moving images. The Alice app, on the other hand, has more interactive features—a child can touch the screen and make things move or change. The eBook version boasts a beautiful illustration of Alice drinking the magic potion, but with the app, you can touch Alice and make her grow.
- Reading Reinforcement: Choose reading apps wisely. If your child loves tales about royal beauties, read her favorites in print or on an eReader, and supplement the text with an app like Princess Presto's Wands Up Writing or The Princess and the Frog read-along. Incorporating princess learning materials will help get your kid excited for storytime, and motivate her to explore other educational tools.
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