Growing Potential: The Impact of Digital Technologies in the Home on Preschool Children’s Early Literacies

• In Event: Digital Technologies and Learning to Read: Possible Effects on Communicative, Cognitive, and Attitudinal Processes

Abstract

Over the last decade, digital technologies and digital media have transformed our homes, our work and our leisure activities. Changes have been so rapid and so pervasive that it is hard to remember that at the turn of the century, home access to the Internet was largely via dial-up modem and a computer terminal, and available in around a quarter of UK households. The use of mobile phones as multi-tasking devices was just beginning to take off.

Our research team (McPake, Plowman, Stephen; United Kingdom) have been conducting research with families with a child aged three to four since 2003 and have observed how this growth in home technologies has affected children’s lives, and in particular how it has increased their scope for communication. In our most recent visits, which took place in 2009, every family we visited had at least one home computer – and sometimes as many or three or four – and all had broadband access to the Internet. Every family had at least one TV set, at least one mobile phone and at least one games console. The range of technologies bought specifically for children’s use was extensive, including DVDs of children’s films and TV series, video games, MP3 players, karaoke machines and electronic musical instruments, still and digital cameras, mobile phones and teaching technologies such as electronic books. Thus, by the time they start school, 21st century children have had extensive exposure to a range of digital communication technologies, at home and in the community.

This presentation will discuss children’s early communicative experiences with digital technologies, addressing the following questions: 1) What are children learning about the roles digital technologies play in supporting communication in their families and communities? 2) To what extent are they able to harness these technologies for their own purposes? 3) What use will they make of their knowledge and experiences when they start school?

Authors

• Joanna McPake, University of Strathclyde

• Christine Stephen, University of Stirling