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- How Do I?
KIDS AND DIGITAL MEDIA
Digital media offers families opportunities to stay connected, learn, and read.
Making intentional decisions about digital media use for your child, choosing high quality media and modeling positive use are important. Learn more!
- Explore digital media together with young children just as you would play or read a paper book with them.
- Model positive digital media use.
- Make intentional decisions about digital media with your kids.
- Create a family digital media plan. Check out one example at HealthyChildren.org. Limit digital media use by activity, time, location, or other family rules.
- Let apps inspire real world play.
- Content matters. Choose high quality digital media that is age appropriate.
- Free exploration is an important part of learning. The first time children explore an app, let them navigate an app at their own pace rather than “teaching” them how to use the app.
Choosing Apps and Other Digital Media
- Explore new apps in their entirety on your own before exploring them together with your young children.
- Look for high-quality apps and other media that help you and your child write, read, play, sing and talk TOGETHER (the 5 early literacy practices for your pre-reader). Joint media engagement, or co-play, is an important part of using digital media with young children.
- Consider your individual child, the content of the digital media, and how, when, where, and with whom your child will use the media.
Look for…
... high-quality story and book apps that have:
- meaningful interactive elements that add to the story and don’t distract from the story
- a great story with high quality images
- plain, highly-readable text
- read-to-me, read-to-myself, and voice record options
- settings for turning on/off music and other sound effects
... high-quality toy and game apps that:
- are fun to play over and over again
- offer open-ended play
- encourage creativity
- support joint media engagement and inspire co-play
- strengthen one or more early literacy practices (read, write, talk, sing, play)
- are age appropriate
- have intuitive wayfinding
- have clean, uncluttered display
- have no technical glitches
Need app suggestions?
Ask a librarian!
Other resources for finding apps and digital media for kids:
