How effective it’s to give children the first impression of books through electronic devices such as iPad? It’s the question I’m curious about! In my opinion, exposing children to children literature early is a very good thing. I think if children is familiar with books early, they might become literate early. Perhaps, by becoming literate early they might attune to education better as they grow up. By the way, contents do matter, so don’t just pick any children book. I think children should read books that are meaningful — messages within have to be emphasizing on good morals. Anyhow, exposing children to books at early age is quite important if one takes the same perspective as I have had. The question is, can electronic devices such as iPad be effective in exposing children to books (i.e., eBooks)?
Perhaps, electronic devices such as iPad might be too distractive, therefore it might not be effective enough in exposing children to books? The fear is that children might go for pretty graphics, therefore video games on tablet devices might be something they might want to play with instead of learning how to read. The exception would be video games for children that encourage reading, because such video games might teach children how to read after all.
Anyhow, my opinion is that we should introduce real books to children at early age, and then as they grow up they can explore more books through electronic devices such as iPad (i.e., eBooks). The idea here is to get rid of distraction, but stimulating enough so the children won’t shy away from reading at early ages. Perhaps, parents should show high levels of excitement in children books in order for the children to show some enthusiasms in reading children books. I’m not sure, but colorful children books might not be a bad idea as long the messages within are meaningful. Boring meaningful messages might not be stimulating enough, therefore children books might need to be somewhat exotic to expand children imagination, in a good way of course (i.e., turning boring but positive messages into exciting messages).
In the end, I do not know the effectiveness of exposing children eBooks to children at the early age, because I’ve yet learned or read of a study which tackles this subject. I do know though, the time before eBooks, children had always been exposed to regular children books (i.e., not children eBooks). The question I’ve been curious of is which children book form is better in term of enticing children to read early, children eBooks or children regular books (i.e., made from papers)? My intuition tells me that children should be exposed to regular children books first before they old enough to read eBooks. What do you think?
Filed under: Anything Goes, Gadgets Tagged: children, ebooks, education, electronic devices, literacy, literature, tablets
