The number of children who’ve read an ebook has jumped 36% since 2010, a study released by Scholastic reports. This double-digital increase is a not-so-surprising statistic for grandparents who regularly babysit their grandkids.
On-screen activities — mainly games on computers, tablets and smartphones — have come to dominate children’s lives, even those who are very young.
But here’s the question: is the rise in ebook reading helping or hurting literacy development in children who aren’t yet conventional readers?
This idea motivated researchers to investigate the positive and negative effects of electronic stories on preschool and kindergarten-aged children. What they discovered could have far-reaching effects on the use of ebooks in education, and in your home.
The Upside
For children at risk for language and reading difficulty, adding certain information to electronic story books — such as animated pictures, music or sound that matches the simultaneously presented story text — can be beneficial to their comprehension.
The Downside
By the same token, the researchers acknowledged that using features that necessitate multi-tasking — such as switching from text to interactive features while trying to retain the details of the story — can cause cognitive overload in little kids.
Plus, (apparently) the endless rings and dings are very frustrating to adults. The researchers point out that when adults get impatient while reading electronic story books, it can interfere with a child’s positive interaction with an ebook.
Though, there is one thing the researchers made abundantly clear.
Parental involvement is one of the most important predictors of a child’s story understanding. Same thing applies to the reading of printed books. In other words, whether it’s digital or print, just enjoy the experience with your grandchild. That’s far more important to their reading comprehension than any rings and dings.
