The Impact of the Digital Home Environment on Kindergartners' Language and Early Literacy.

Eliane Segers,Tijs Kleemans

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.538584

Eliane Segers, Tijs Kleemans

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.538584

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Abstract

We examined whether a digital home literacy environment could be distinguished from a (traditional) analog home literacy environment, and whether both were related to kindergartners’ language and literacy levels, taking parental expectations into account. Caregivers of 71 kindergarteners filled out a questionnaire on the home environment (expectations, activities, and materials), and the children were assessed on language (vocabulary and grammar) and literacy (begin phoneme awareness, segmentation skill, and grapheme knowledge) skills. Results showed that a digital environment could be distinguished from an analog environment. However, only the analog environment was related to children’s language abilities. Parental expectations were related directly to both language and literacy abilities. The fact that there was no relation between the digital home environment and language and literacy outcomes might indicate large variation in the quality of the digital home environment. More attention is needed to this part of daily life when growing up in a digital society.

Highlights

Young children increasingly become aware of language and literacy
While there is a large body of research on the additional effects of computer-supported early literacy in kindergarten, only very recently has research been published on the use of tablets at home by kindergartners
The group of children of the parents who did not fill in the questions on digital home environment had lower language skills than the other group [t(68) = −2.18, p = 0.03, d = 0.62], but did not differ in early literacy or non-verbal intelligence

Summary

Introduction

Young children increasingly become aware of language and literacy They enter kindergarten with heads full of stories that have been told at home and an emergent awareness of the form and function of written language. During their kindergarten years, children have a steep growth in the development of vocabulary (Biemiller, 2006), and begin to develop phonological awareness and grapheme knowledge (e.g., Verhoeven et al, 2016). While there is a large body of research on the additional effects of computer-supported early literacy in kindergarten (see Verhoeven et al, 2020), only very recently has research been published on the use of tablets at home by kindergartners. Research is lagging behind on the impact of a digital home environment on learning (Radesky et al, 2015)

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