Advantages and disadvantages of using e - books Essay

Conclusions from Hoffman and Paciga (2014) suggest that e-books can encourage children's language and development of literacy the same as print books. As there are only a small number of studies focused on the pre-school age child that the authors could use for information, they stressed that e-books must be shared with the young child using research-based strategies. Even though the very young child is able to learn to "click-and-swipe", it is only with guidance from the adult that they can really understand the text. NAEYC (2012) has said that educators, in particular, should make "informed, intentional, and appropriate choices about if, how, and when technology and media are used from birth through age 8" (p. 11). Children should not use this type of media in ways which hurt either their health or social interactions. As an example, they should not play video games or watch television instead of playing outside or with friends in such a way that increases isolation from important people in their lives. Educators must provide a balance between traditional materials and technology resources.
In critiquing the six articles, it was noticed that although it is known that reading to pre-school children is beneficial, there are not enough studies that provide data that doing so influences later literacy achievement. I propose implementing a qualitative study that would include teachers, parents, and pre-school children in our county's 26 elementary schools to gather data on the benefits of early reading. The study would use a variety of texts informational, print-focused, and digital along with a questionnaire. The questionnaire would focus on the same type of data gained from Pillinger and Wood's (2014) pilot study but with a much larger number of participants. The study would attempt to assess if the child benefitted more from being read to at home, at school and at home, or just at home using shared or dialogic reading strategies.
Later success in reading starts before school begins. Reading aloud with a young child whether it's your own or in a school setting is usually beneficial in all aspects of emergent literacy. It can also lead to a love of reading that is more important that learning any specific reading skill (Duursma, Augustyn, & Zuckerman, 2010). Paying close attention to how you share the reading leads to even greater benefits. Print knowledge, asking questions, predicting outcomes, reading various genres, selecting high quality books all work together to insure fewer difficulties in reading and overall success in school. My immediate personal future holds lots of opportunities for shared, interactive read-alouds as I have a three year old son at home. My immediate professional future will hold the same as I am about to start a new position as a self-contained MID teacher in middle school. Lennox (2013) says it best when she states that "the way books are shared open or close learning opportunities" for the young child and that "the limits of their language mean the limit of their world" (p. 387).