Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens

Book description

A guide to promoting literacy in the digital age

With young children gaining access to a dizzying array of games, videos, and other digital media, will they ever learn to read? The answer is yes—if they are surrounded by adults who know how to help and if they are introduced to media designed to promote literacy, instead of undermining it. Tap, Click, Read gives educators and parents the tools and information they need to help children grow into strong, passionate readers who are skilled at using media and technology of all kinds—print, digital, and everything in between.

In Tap, Click, Read authors Lisa Guernsey and Michael H. Levine envision a future that is human-centered first and tech-assisted second. They document how educators and parents can lead a new path to a place they call 'Readialand'—a literacy-rich world that marries reading and digital media to bring knowledge, skills, and critical thinking to all of our children. This approach is driven by the urgent need for low-income children and parents to have access to the same 21st-century literacy opportunities already at the fingertips of today's affluent families.With stories from homes, classrooms and cutting edge tech labs, plus accessible translation of new research and compelling videos, Guernsey and Levine help educators, parents, and America's leaders tackle the questions that arise as digital media plays a larger and larger role in children's lives, starting in their very first years of life.

Tap, Click, Read includes an analysis of the exploding app marketplace and provides useful information on new review sites and valuable curation tools. It shows what to avoid and what to demand in today's apps and e-books—as well as what to seek in community preschools, elementary schools and libraries. Peppered with the latest research from fields as diverse as neuroscience and behavioral economics and richly documented examples of best practices from schools and early childhood programs around the country, Tap, Click, Read will show you how to:

  • Promote the adult-child interactions that help kids grow into strong readers

  • Learn how to use digital media to build a foundation for reading and success

  • Discover new tools that open up avenues for creativity, critical thinking, and knowledge-building that today's children need

  • The book's accompanying website, TapClickRead.org, keeps you updated on new research and provides vital resources to help parents, schools and community organizations.

    Table of contents

    1. Title Page
    2. Copyright
    3. Preface
    4. Part 1: Imagining the Class of 2030
      1. Chapter 1: The Quiet Crisis
        1. The Sorry State of Reading Today
        2. What's Holding Us Back
        3. Notes
      2. Chapter 2: What to Make of Media?
        1. Early Learning and Screen Media: Content and Context Matters
        2. How Young Is Too Young?
        3. Tapping into Diversity: An American Opportunity
        4. Marrying Reading and Media
        5. Envisioning Readialand
        6. Notes
      3. Chapter 3: How Reading Happens
        1. Learning to Read: Knowledge + Skills
        2. Language and Cultural Assets Are Not Literacy Deficits
        3. Notes
      4. Chapter 4: From Literacy to Literacies
        1. The New Literacies
        2. Teaching New Literacies to Young Children: A Work in Progress
        3. Scouts for New Literacies in Early Education
        4. Notes
      5. Chapter 5: Paving a Path to Readialand
        1. Lessons from Sesame Street
        2. Notes
    5. Part 2: Surveying the New Literacy Landscape
      1. Chapter 6: The Apps Explosion: What's in the Store?
        1. Finding the “Good Stuff”
        2. Pioneering Literacy in the Digital Wild West
        3. Where Are the Experts?
        4. Missing Opportunities: Apps and the Knowledge Gap
        5. Teaching Strategies in Today's Literacy Apps
        6. Culling the Developers
        7. Facing the New Frontier
        8. Curators: Scouts for Digital Gold
        9. Notes
      2. Chapter 7: E-books: When Print Comes Alive
        1. What to Watch For in Children's E-books
        2. Highlighting Print on Screen
        3. Who (or What) Is Doing the Scaffolding?
        4. Scaling Up: Just the Beginning
        5. Learning Together: E-books Plus
        6. Notes
      3. Chapter 8: From Talking Toys to Watson: Dreaming Up Tech for Tomorrow's Readers
        1. An Evolutionary Shift?
        2. Next Gen Literacy Tools
        3. Notes
    6. Part 3: The Pioneers
      1. Chapter 9: Why Adults Still Matter Most
        1. Global Experiments, Sans Educators
        2. Tapping Into America's Pioneers
        3. Notes
      2. Chapter 10: A Different Kind of Screen Time
        1. Promoting Dialogic Reading
        2. Using Video to Help Parents Rethink the “Always On” TV
        3. Modeling with Ready Rosie
        4. Learning Together: Verbal Interactions Prompted by the Screen
        5. Notes
      3. Chapter 11: Nudged toward Conversational Duets
        1. Digital Taps and Behavioral Nudges
        2. Texting for Modern-Day Parents
        3. Encouragement via Broadcast TV: Univision and Too Small to Fail
        4. A FitBit for Words and Conversations
        5. Notes
      4. Chapter 12: Science, Social Studies, and More: The Knowledge Readers Need
        1. Joint Media Engagement and Knowledge Building
        2. Making Meaning in Maine
        3. Tools for Building Knowledge
        4. Notes
      5. Chapter 13: An Expanding Universe of Reading Partners
        1. Unusual Tutors at H. D. Cooke Elementary
        2. Media Mentors
        3. Notes
      6. Chapter 14: Developing Focused Attention and Motivation
        1. Executive Functioning: The Hot New Science of Early Learning
        2. Learning from Harry
        3. Getting Over the Slump
        4. Notes
      7. Chapter 15: Paper and Print? Yes
        1. Making Literacy Visible Everywhere You Look
        2. The Story of First Book
        3. Mixing Media, Including Print on Paper
        4. Notes
    7. Part 4: Homesteading for the Next Generation
      1. Chapter 16: What Educators, Parents, Developers, and Policymakers Can Do
        1. Taking Stock: We Are Stuck
        2. Calling On America's Leaders
        3. What Educators Can Do
        4. What Parents Can Do
        5. What Developers Can Do
        6. Twelve Actions Policymakers Should Take Now
        7. Conclusion
        8. Notes
    8. Resources
    9. About the Authors
    10. Acknowledgments
    11. Bibliography
    12. Index
    13. End User License Agreement

    Product information

    • Title: Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens
    • Author(s):
    • Release date: September 2015
    • Publisher(s): Jossey-Bass
    • ISBN: 9781119091899