The Future of Children’s Texts: Evaluating Book Apps as Multimodal Reading Experiences

• In Event: Research, Education, Information, and School Libraries SIG Paper Session

Abstract

One of the most important developments in children's literacy in the past several decades is the movement of text from the page to the screen. With the advent of portable, multitouch reading devices, book "apps" are becoming a common feature of homes, classrooms, and libraries. Yet, parents and literacy professionals have little guidance in selecting and mediating these materials. Our paper reports early findings from an exploration of these multimodal texts as a new literacy ecology. We share our systematic evaluation of over 100 books apps, and identify how the features of these texts are altering the literacy practices of adults and children alike.

Authors

• Eric Meyers, The University of British Columbia

• Aline Frederico

• Ehlam Zaminpaima