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With respect and regreting that I am so negative, I would respectfully submit that this idea that children need to learn to read from paper books and not eReaders is all a complete bunch of hooey !
I think ebook readers can be a fabulous tool for older kids, but anyone who thinks they will replace paper for little kids has obviously not spent much time in a primary school!
Based on what evidence ? Just personal opinion ? We have seen how bizarre personal opinion can be in a series of articles here by adult book lovers who appear unable to grasp the difference between medium and content. I fear the same clearly applies here.
Part of assessing the reading readiness of a small child involves observing them interacting with the book as a physical object. I have done reading readiness assessments on preschoolers before, and trust me, they literally start with ‘is the child holding the book right side up?’ and go from there.
Oh please. A child will interact with an eReader or iPad just as effectively as a paper book and the suggestion that a child needs to ‘turn the page themselves’ as part of the learning process beggars belief. This is clearly a mental block on the art of the writer, who is clearly emotionally limited to the concept of paper book, and it has nothing to do with the real act of learning by a child.
I could go on and on, quote by quote but it would be boring. Will children still interact with other media such as block, toys, counting units et al ? of course they will ! but that is not the issue being claimed. The story about puppetry is also a complete red herring and an irrelevance thrown in to confuse and instead it actually illustrates confusion on the part of the writer. Children will always benefit from a multitude of learning experiences in class that go beyond the book, either paper or eBook.
All recent research on learning through use of computers has consistently shown huge accelerated learning by children of all abilities. For anyone who has used ereaders and allowed their children to play with them it is evident that they grasp the principle in nano seconds and without real hard evidence to the contrary, I don’t buy into Joanna’s assertion one bit.
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