ABSTRACT
As a unique aesthetic and literary artefact, picture books have occupied a central place in contemporary early childhood. They provide, for many young children, the earliest literacy experience. Joint picture book reading between caregivers and young children is one of the most effective strategies for fostering emergent literacy and has profound implications for the long-term literacy development, as shown by a rich body of research evidence (e.g., Bus et al., 1995; Mol et al., 2008). The value of picture books for promoting literacy learning has been further highlighted in the multiliteracies pedagogy movement (e.g., Hassett and Curwood, 2009; Walsh, 2003). As narrative in picture books relies largely on the sophisticated
interplays between verbiage and image (e.g., Lewis, 2001; Nikolajeva and Scott, 2013; Painter et al., 2012), it not only introduces young children to the convent - ions of print, but also provides them unique opportunities to engage with multiple meaning-making modes such as language and image, resources such as font, colour and layout, and multimodal narrative genres. As smart phones and tablet computers become increasingly ubiquitous in early
childhood, a variety of new forms of ‘picture books’, such as animated e-books, enhanced e-books, and book applications (or apps) have been made available to young readers. These emerging digital literacy artefacts have brought into question the role of picture books in early literacy. Many advocates consider digital books an improvement on physical picture books, believing that they have the potential to provide new literacy learning opportunities. In their recommendation to teachers, for instance, Hutchison et al. (2012, p. 17) suggested that the variety of electronic books available for the iPad provided additional advantages over paper media books, since they afforded students more opportunities to physically interact with and manipulate and transform texts according to their needs and interests. The sceptics, on the other hand, are concerned that an over-reliance on digital
technologies could deprive children of a range of literacy skills that are traditionally developed through engagement with print-based picture books. Enhanced e-books have been reported as being less effective than the print and basic e-book versions in terms of their capacity to support the benefits of co-reading, because they prompted more non-content-related interactions (Chiong et al., 2012; ParishMorris et al., 2013). In an interview, Mem Fox-a leading Australian picture book author-criticised the mobile app as it ‘has no beginning, middle or end, and did not describe forgiveness or courage in adversity’ and expressed concern that ‘an increasing reliance on technology to teach children how to read could inhibit their empathy and social skills’ (Stark, 2013). The purpose of our chapter is not to take a side in this ongoing debate. Rather,
we aim to tackle one of the most basic questions of the debate-how (and if) the picture book app is different from a print book. We believe that a systematic understanding of these emerging digital textual artefacts needs to be developed before we can fully examine the ‘losses and gains’ (Kress, 2005, p. 6) involved in introducing them into young children’s literacy lives. The disciplinary approach we take here is often referred to as (multimodal) social semiotics (Halliday, 1978; Kress, 2009; van Leeuwen, 2005). From this perspective, picture book apps are a semiotic artefact, consisting of various semiotic or meaning-making resources and modes, as well as touch designs. The main task of a social semiotic analysis is to unpack how these various resources have been deployed and how they interact with each other, to make meaning in the narrative context of a picture book.
