Abstract
In light of growing evidence that many parents are deeply concerned about their young children’s increasing technology use, in this paper we report on aspects of a study funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, where we sought to understand parents’ views on children’s digital book reading. We introduced seven families to four award-winning digital books (story apps and e-books), observed how the mothers mediated their children’s digital book reading over a period of several weeks and subsequently interviewed the mothers about their shared reading experiences with the digital books. Focusing on the interview data and drawing on the theoretical framework of socio-materiality, this paper reports on how parents’ views about digital book features were entangled with their social perceptions of the value of digital reading. Analysis of parents’ accounts show three conflicted themes of trust/mistrust, agency/dependency and nostalgia/realism in parental attitudes towards their children’s reading on screens. The paper concludes with a discussion of how these findings regarding the unresolved dichotomies inherent in parental views about their children’s digital reading are highly relevant for future research on parental mediation of their children’s learning with digital media.
Highlights
Parent–child shared book reading is arguably the most researched and most highly regarded parent–child activity in Western culture
The increased availability of digital reading resources for children has begun to disrupt and expand traditional reading activities at home, with a steadily increasing number of ever-younger children regularly reading in digital formats (Common Sense Media, 2017; Ofcom, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)
International research has found that many parents have conflicting views on the pros and cons of their young children’s exposure to technologies and digital media (Chaudron et al, 2018; Murphy and Headley, 2018), including their reading of digital books (Strouse and Ganea, 2017)
Summary
Parent–child shared book reading is arguably the most researched and most highly regarded parent–child activity in Western culture. Shared book reading is known to promote children’s early awareness of print, vocabulary and literary conventions, such as genres, character and plot development (Nikolajeva, 1996), to support children’s socio-emotional learning (Doyle and Bramwell, 2006) language and literacy development (Bus et al, 1995), and to enhance bonding (Bus, 2003) and language interaction between parents and young children (Gilkerson et al, 2017). It is often characterised by reading for pleasure and reading enjoyment, which in turn are strongly associated with reading achievement and reading across one's lifespan (Greaney and Hegarty, 1987; Murphy, 2013). Parents’ preference for print books influences their reading behaviours with digital books and their mediation strategies, which have been found to be of lower quality than with print books (Munzer et al, 2019)
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