The Impact of Mobile Learning via Touch-Screen Tablets in Emergent Literacy Development

Introduction

Emergent literacy is referred to the early development of a number of oral language and code-related skills (see Storch & Whitehurst, 2002) that are foundational skills upon which children build future skilled reading and writing (Kirby, Parrila, & Pfeiffer, 2003; Landerl & Wimmer, 2008). The provision of high-quality literacy experiences at home and in the pre-school setting as well as the quality of the interactions between adults and young children contribute to the development of children’s early literacy skills (Niklas & Schneider, 2013; Dickinson & McCabe, 2001). With new technological advances continually emerging, the literacy practices of young children and their families are characterized, more than ever before, by the everyday use of digital technologies (Flewitt, Messer, & Kucirkova, 2015). In fact, the entry of digital technologies primarily into the home environment and to a lesser extent into the school environment (Flewitt et al., 2015) has exposed children, parents and educators to new forms of literacy combining active learning and pleasure (Shamir & Korat, 2015).

Particularly, the rapid entry and use of portable technologies and efficient mobile devices such as touch- screen tablets brought new habits to the level of everyday life and new tools at the educational level (Kokkalia, Drigas, & Economou, 2016). These devices offer the opportunity for independent learning and easy access to information as well as they provide motivation and stimulus that promote the development of digital literacy (Zaranis, Kalogiannakis, & Papadakis, 2013). Touch-screen tablets are becoming rapidly popular among pre-schoolers because of their technological features (Papadakis, Kalogiannakis, & Zaranis, 2016) and this trend is rising rapidly (Rideout, 2017). They are able to provide all the advantages of mobile learning in all educational levels, not only for one-to-one learning but also as an entertaining, attractive, and potentially powerful learning tool for work in different learning environments (e.g. inside and outside the classroom) (Zaranis et al., 2013). In addition, they offer the potential for accompanying educational applications (apps) (Terras & Ramsay, 2012) that can create exciting environments for learning and instruction even in early childhood (Papadakis, Kalogiannakis, & Zaranis, 2017). The engaging features of tablets could afford a range of opportunities for promoting emergent literacy development (Neumann & Neumann, 2017). Their integration in family literacy practices is also changing patterns of parent/adult-child interactions and the way children learn from such interactions (Kucirkova, Messer, Sheehy, & Flewitt, 2013). Due to the increasing popularity of touch-screen tablets as digital devices for pre-schoolers it is essential to explore the potential effects tablets have on emergent literacy. In this direction, the present chapter reviews recent research that has examined the use of tablets at home and in the pre-school setting to foster emergent literacy skills.