Natalia Kucirkova

Children's engagement with educational iPad apps: Insights from a Spanish classroom

This study investigates the effects of a story-making app called Our Story and a selection of other educational apps on the learning engagement of forty-one Spanish 4-5-year-olds. Children were observed interacting in small groups with the story-making app and this was compared to their engagement with a selection of construction and drawing apps. Childrens engagement was analysed in two ways: it was categorised using Bangert-Drowns and Pykes taxonomy for individual hands-on engagement with educational software, and using the concept of exploratory talk as developed by Mercer et al. to analyse peer engagement. For both approaches, quantitative and qualitative indices of childrens engagement were considered. The overall findings suggested that in terms of the Bangert-Drowns and Pyke taxonomy, the quality of childrens individual engagement was higher with the OS app in contrast to their engagement with other app software. The frequency of childrens use of exploratory talk was similar with the OS and colouring and drawing apps, and a detailed qualitative analysis of the interaction transcripts revealed several instances of the OS and drawing apps supporting joint problem-solving and collaborative engagement. We suggest that critical indices of an apps educational value are the extent to which the app supports opportunities for open-ended content and childrens independent use of increasingly difficult features.

New directions for early literacy in a digital age: the iPad

In this paper, we discuss how iPads offer innovative opportunities for early literacy learning but also present challenges for teachers and children. We lent iPads to a Children’s Centre nursery (3- to 4-year-olds), a primary school reception class (4- to 5-year-olds) and a Special School (7- to 13-year-olds), discussed their potential uses with staff in pre- and post-interviews and observed how they were integrated into practice over a two-month period. We found variability in the ways iPads were used across the settings, but a commonality was that well-planned; iPad-based literacy activities stimulated children’s motivation and concentration. They also offered rich opportunities for communication, collaborative interaction, independent learning, and for children to achieve high levels of accomplishment. In some cases, this led teachers favourably to re-evaluate the children’s literacy competence, and enabled children to construct positive images of themselves in the literacy classroom. Practitioners particularly valued the opportunities iPads afforded to deliver curriculum guidelines in new ways, and to familiarise all students with touch-screen technologies.

A Vygotskian perspective on parent-child talk during iPad story sharing

This study explores the themes in the talk of two mothers and daughters as they share a self-created story with an iPad app. Vygotskys theory of learning is applied to inform a thematic analysis and help interpret the learning potential within the observed parent–child exchanges. A deductive–inductive thematic analysis identified three recurring themes in the parent–child talk: realistic fiction, scaffolding variations, and engaged players and objects of ‘play’. The themes suggested that Vygotskys theory has particular relevance in exploring the learning processes facilitated by the iPad app. In addition, however, post-Vygotskian theoretical frameworks were helpful in capturing the dynamic co-construction of the authentic and multimedia stories parents and children shared.

Parents Reading with Their Toddlers: The Role of Personalization in Book Engagement.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of personalized books on parents’ and children’s engagement during shared book reading. Seven native English parents and their children aged between 12 and 33 months were observed at home when sharing a book made specifically for the child (i.e. a personalized book), a comparable book with no personalized content, and a favourite book of the child. The interactions were videotaped and later coded to provide information about the frequency of behaviours that indicated engagement with the books. Statistical analyses revealed that children and parents showed significantly higher overall frequencies of smiles and laughs with the personalized books in comparison to the non-personalized books, and showed higher frequency of vocal activity with the personalized as opposed to the child’s favourite book. In addition, there was a significantly higher rate of children’s smiles and laughs with the personalized than with the non-personalized book. It appeared that most of the children’s positive affect with the personalized books was in response to the content of those books, while the parents’ smiles occurred mostly in response to a smile or laugh from the child. These findings are among the first to suggest that personalized features of books result in specific distinct responses in parents and children during shared book reading.

Young children’s reading for pleasure with digital books: six key facets of engagement

Abstract This paper offers a new characterisation of young children’s (2–8 years) reading for pleasure (RfP) with digital books. This characterisation is rooted in a re-contextualisation of Anna Craft’s conceptualisation of twenty-first century childhoods in Creativity and education futures (Stoke on Trent, Trentham, 2011) and a review of the literature concerning young children’s RfP with digital books. The paper develops Craft’s (2011) work by considering the ways in which digital books can resource the ‘4Ps of digital childhood’ in reading for pleasure. Six facets of reader engagement, nested within Craft’s (2011) 4Ps, are presented: affective, creative, interactive, shared, sustained and personalised reading engagements. It is argued that this characterisation of young children’s reading engagements can enrich our understanding of the affordances of digital books in relation to RfP in the twenty-first century. The paper thus offers an important new contribution, going beyond established work in the field, which typically explores digital books in relation to children’s learning, product design or developmental outcomes.

Story-Making on the iPad When Children Have Complex Needs Two Case Studies

The two case studies reported in this clinical exchange describe the way in which iPads can foster children’s motivation to engage in communication and literacy-related activities such as story-sharing and story-creation. A detailed description of a particular iPad app (Our Story) is provided, along with observations of the implementation of this app in two special schools. The benefits and limitations of this approach for children with complex language and communication difficulties are identified. Recommendations are provided for future support of children’s literacy-related skills with iPads, with observations made about implementation issues related to the Our Story app.

iRPD--A Framework for Guiding Design-Based Research for iPad Apps.

The last 5 years have been marked by an explosion of tablet and smartphone applications designed for young children and several calls to encourage educational researchers to engage in childrens app research. This paper presents a novel prospect for educational researchers: to collaboratively research, implement and produce iPad apps for educational purposes. Based on the authors own research as well as that of others, an original framework “Research, Practice and Design framework” (iRPD) for guiding such collaborative efforts is provided, along with five key principles: triple collaboration, shared epistemology, awareness of affordances and interconnected social factors, and child-centred pedagogy. The novel affordances of collaboratively produced iPad apps for educational design-based research are outlined, along with several examples of how such an engagement might enrich educational research and the app landscape.

Reading personalized books with preschool children enhances their word acquisition

This study examines whether books that contain personalized content are better facilitators of young children’s word acquisition than books which are not personalized for a child. In a repeated-measures experimental design, 18 children (mean age 3;10) were read a picture book which contained both personalized and non-personalized sections, with unknown, real, target words embedded in each section. The book was read to the children on two occasions, with a one-week gap between each session. There were three testing points and these took place after the first reading session, just before the second reading session and immediately after the second reading session. At each testing point the children’s knowledge of the new words was assessed with picture comprehension, definition and emotional valence tests. The findings revealed that, at the second and third testing points, the children showed significantly better knowledge about the words that were in the personalized sections of the books than the words in the non-personalized sections. The implications of these findings for future book reading research and practice are discussed.

Personalisation: A theoretical possibility to reinvigorate children’s interest in storybook reading and facilitate greater book diversity

Since the early 2010s, there has been a proliferation of new platforms for children’s stories (e.g. storybook apps or iBooks), but not necessarily greater diversity of story content or children’s greater interest in reading. This article argues for a new approach to address the apparent paradox of a wider availability of children’s literature combined with children’s eroded reading interest. The issue is suggested to be addressed by considering the agency and aesthetic dimensions which lie at the heart of personalisation theory. Translating agency into reading practice means establishing children’s early authoring, which can result in an eclectic approach to content and increased reading motivation, as long as children’s aesthetic choices are fully supported. However, it is also argued that early authoring should not be conflated with achieving an overly child-centred literature, which would ignore the reciprocity dimension of community and society relations. Digital book-making is suggested to offer original concepts which might provide an alternative approach for future work in the area of early authoring.

Digital Personal Stories: A Case Study of Two African Adolescents, with Severe Learning and Communication Disabilities

Context: This action-research case study used a formative experiment methodological framework to examine how two adolescent boys with learning disabilities engaged with an iPad app to create and share their own digital stories. The boys were African immigrants with English as additional language and severe speech and communication difficulties. Case Report: Video observations of the key steps of the action research cycle and interviews with the boys’ teacher and teaching assistant were analysed using content analysis. Findings revealed that despite having some difficulties with learning some of the functions of the app, the boys were able to communicate their ideas to others, take ownership of the story by deciding on photographs and storylines and develop some social skills by presenting the stories to others in the class. Conclusion: Using the Our Story app was helpful in facilitating a sequential arrangement of the pictures and their annotation with sounds and short captions. Study findings are discussed in relation to using iPad apps with children with severe learning disabilities.