“Technology is here to stay for young children”

https://youtu.be/Hr5ob6iRmfU

• How can we promote literacy and vocabulary development in early childhood education, as well as at home?

  The early development of literacy and oral language is highly significant because it is a crucial part of children’s overall development: it is deeply intertwined with cognitive development as well as social-emotional development.
  
  Every home offers opportunities for children’s development. And in that sense, it is very important—especially in certain groups where adults have had fewer educational opportunities—for early childhood education to work together and in partnership with families and households.
  
  Kindergartens can organize family literacy workshops where parents are shown specific situations. For example, storytime or dramatic play activities, which have the potential to greatly enhance children’s development.
  
  Children begin learning language practically from the moment they are very young, almost from birth. In the first year of life, before they can produce their first words, they begin to understand. At 6 or 8 months, they show signs of recognizing some words and directing their gaze when spoken to. And all this learning takes place almost naturally within the context of conversations.
  
  But there are specific ways of interacting that can further promote this and that involve being responsive to children’s comments. Repeat the words children say, try to expand on them, name the things they’re referring to, and focus on what sparks the children’s interest.

• What role do picture books play in children’s early literacy development? What recommendations would you offer to maximize their benefits?

  Reading should be rooted in conversation. The idea is to read stories to children, discuss the text, and show them the illustrations.
  
  It is very important to read frequently and to revisit the same stories time and again. It’s not about always reading a different story. On the contrary, reading a story several times contributes to learning the writing system, because children can see the words, learn the text almost by heart, and then predict what will happen and participate more actively in the reading experience.
  
  Stories, in addition to introducing written words, introduce other worlds that are less familiar to children.They learn a vast amount of vocabulary which, if facilitated by an adult (that is, if the adult explains words that may be less familiar to the children), contributes significantly to vocabulary development, which will later have a major impact on literacy.
  
  It has been demonstrated that children who, by the age of 5, have a broader and more diverse vocabulary are the ones who most easily access the writing system. And these are the children who, when they are in^3rd or^4th grade of elementary school and have to read, comprehend, and produce texts at school, have the foundational vocabulary to do so.
  
  Likewise, the role of preschool is very important, as it interacts with families, provides storybooks—so that every home has them—and has the potential to demonstrate specific strategies. I’m talking about the subtlety of interaction strategies, because asking one question is not the same as asking another. Picking up on a child’s words is not the same as not doing so.
  
  The idea is that all these strategies, which are developed in a hybrid situation—because there is a written text that is simultaneously embedded in a conversation—with very familiar figures—mom, dad, siblings, or grandparents—are then transferred to learning and to independent reading and writing of written texts.

• What is your opinion on digital books for children, as opposed to paper books? Does the evidence show a difference based on the format?

  Specifically, my team hasn’t conducted any research on this topic. What I can tell you is that we’ve administered vocabulary development tests. In other words, tests where the child sees two images, hears a word, and has to identify which image corresponds to the word they heard. The computerized test—that is, one using a tablet — generates much more engagement from the child and much more motivation than the paper-based test.
  
  It depends on the specific digital format being used, but if it’s an interactive format where the child receives some form of feedback, it can generate a high level of engagement and be very productive. There is a component of all learning—but particularly literacy—that is linked to motivation: motivational factors are also very important.

• What role does play play, specifically, in language development and, more broadly, in children’s learning?

  Play can become a learning experience. For example, pretend play: when children use an object to represent something else. To illustrate, children use a basin or a bucket to pretend it’s a baby’s bathtub. This requires them to use very explicit language, which involves more complex language.
  
  Playing with others leads children to redefine the roles of objects. They have to construct a narrative plot, which leads them to use more complex forms of language. And those will be the forms they encounter later in reading and writing situations.

• COVID-19 brought about a series of changes throughout society. In the wake of the pandemic, what changes are you seeing in terms of children’s literacy?

  Many teachers have informally noted that children are arriving at kindergartens or schools speaking less or with a lower-than-expected vocabulary level. It is important to consider that, in Argentina, children spent more time at home and away from school. This significantly reduced their interactions with peers and extended family. And it has been shown that these interactions are very beneficial for learning.
  
  In the case of literacy, access to the writing system was compromised. This affects children and families depending on the opportunities available in their homes, separate from schools. In Argentina, there are children in^2nd or^3rd grade who really don’t write at all.
  
  And then there have been developments related to the use of technology, which we began to investigate. Interaction contexts that arose when a child picked up a tablet and had a synchronous exchange with a grandparent. Or when they were listening to a story on a device and doing an activity that had been sent to them from preschool.
  
  I believe that technology, for young children, is here to stay. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can be good, depending on the conditions created in the environments, so that this situation can be leveraged and made productive for children’s development.
  
  The pandemic created very complicated situations in education, and these are issues that need to be addressed. In Argentina, we need to make up for a lot of lost time, above all by doing higher-quality and more intensive work.