ABSTRACT
As fast-evolving technologies transform everyday communication and literacy practices, many young children find themselves immersed in multiple digital media from birth. Such rapid technological change has consequences for the development of early literacy, and the ways in which parents and educators are able to equip today’s young citizens for a digital future.
This seminal Handbook fulfils an urgent need to consider how digital technologies are impacting the lives and learning of young children; and how childhood experiences of using digital resources can serve as the foundation for present and future development. Considering children aged 0–8 years, chapters explore the diversity of young children’s literacy skills, practices and expertise across digital tools, technologies and media, in varied contexts, settings and countries.
The Handbook explores six significant areas:
- Part I presents an overview of research into young children’s digital literacy practices, touching on a range of theoretical, methodological and ethical approaches.
- Part II considers young children’s reading, writing and meaning-making when using digital media at home and in the wider community.
- Part III offers an overview of key challenges for early childhood education presented by digital literacy, and discusses political positioning and curricula.
- Part IV focuses on the multimodal and multi-sensory textual landscape of contemporary literary practices, and how children learn to read and write with and across media.
- Part V considers how digital technologies both influence and are influenced by children’s online and offline social relationships.
- Part VI draws together themes from across the Handbook, to propose an agenda for future research into digital literacies in early childhood.
A timely resource identifying and exploring pedagogies designed to bolster young children’s digital and multimodal literacy practices, this key text will be of interest to early childhood educators, researchers and policy-makers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|75 pages
Perspectives on digital literacies in early childhood
chapter 1|12 pages
Researching the digital literacy and multimodal practices of young children
chapter 3|19 pages
Researching digital literacy practices in early childhood
part II|76 pages
Young children’s digital literacy practices in homes, communities and informal learning spaces
chapter 6|14 pages
Young children’s digital literacy practices in the home
part III|86 pages
Young children’s digital literacy practices in early education settings
chapter 15|13 pages
Young children’s digital play in early childhood settings
chapter 16|15 pages
Remixing emergent literacy education
chapter 17|13 pages
Posthuman theory as a tool to explore literacy desirings
part IV|67 pages
Reading and writing on screen
chapter 18|13 pages
Young children’s writing in the 21st century
chapter 20|13 pages
Children’s reading in the digital age
part V|93 pages
Negotiating digital literacy lives in hybrid virtual and physical spaces
chapter 25|12 pages
The quantified child
chapter 26|11 pages
Minecraft ‘worldness’ in family life
chapter 27|14 pages
Digital literacy practices in children’s everyday life
part VI|47 pages
Emergent themes and future visions