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ENGL-320

Theresa Fishman

Sabrina Paller

16 November 2019

Screens in a Preschool Classroom?

What do you think of when you think of preschool? Maybe you think of kids standing

around a table, getting paint all over themselves and the craft that they’re supposed to be

working on, smiling all the while because paint feels funny. Or maybe you think of the little ones

sitting around their teacher as the teacher reads them a story from a well-worn storybook. But do

you think of kids huddled around a tablet as the teacher reads them a story, with the pictures

moving and a song playing in the background? Well, that is what researchers are proposing is the

best method for telling stories to children who are too young to read.

A recent study led by Dilek Altun found that children are more likely to learn from

multimedia stories than from simple storybooks. Standard storybooks make use of two learning

techniques: auditory and visual learning. Children hear the story being read, triggering the part of

the brain that processes sounds, engaging auditory learning. When using a picture book, the

pictures trigger the part of the brain that engages visual learning. With a standard storybook,

children only use a couple of parts of their brain with simple pictures and simple sounds. With

the multimedia storybook, on the other hand, they incorporate more learning techniques into the

process than the simple pictures and words. With visual learning, they make the images move so

that the children are able to follow the story’s plot based upon the actions of the characters. The

characters also display emotions much more clearly than ordinary pictures do, allowing the
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children to determine the reactions and emotions of characters in sync with the story. Multimedia

stories also incorporate songs at times, which have been shown to be helpful mnemonic devices.

So instead of simply hearing the story and following along with a couple of pictures, the

children are placed in the middle of the story. They hear it, sometimes from the tablet, sometimes

from the teacher, and they see the images of the characters in the story moving. The movements

of the character are easily followed by the children and they are better able to understand the

feelings of the characters in the story. As a result, children display a greater understanding of the

plot of the story, the characters’ emotions and reactions, and they have a better remembrance of

the story in the long-term, creating an overall better learning experience.

But should we really be giving young children even more screen time? Studies have

shown that increased screen time for children can lead to decreased attention spans, and

increases the risk of developing ADHD. Reading books, on the other hand, slows down the pace

and increases attention spans. So while it is true that multimedia storybooks can help children

remember the story and understand the story better, multimedia storybooks should still be used

with care, making sure to stay under the recommended maximum of two hours of screen time for

young children.

So will we be seeing multimedia storybooks in preschools now? It’s hard to say. Some

schools will use the new technology, while others won’t. Parents and teachers alike should

determine what is best for their own children, after all, some children do better with paper, and

some do better with screens.

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Works Cited

Altun, Dilek. “The Efficacy of Multimedia Stories in Preschoolers’ Explicit and Implicit Story

Comprehension.” Early Childhood Education Journal, vol. 46, no. 6, Nov. 2018, pp.

629–642.

Tamana, Sukhpreet K., et al. “Screen-Time Is Associated with Inattention Problems in

Preschoolers: Results from the CHILD Birth Cohort Study.” PLoS ONE, vol. 14, no. 4,

Apr. 2019, pp. 1–15.