Young children’s initiation into family literacy practices in the digital age ~ Jackie Marsh, Peter Hannon, Margaret Lewis and Louise Ritchie

1. Young Children’s Initiation into Family Literacy
Practices in the Digital Age
Jackie Marsh, Peter Hannon, Margaret Lewis and Louise Ritchie, 2017

2. Goal
The authors conducted a research in order to identify the scope of
digital literacy practices at the home of four families with children
aged between 2 and 4 years old.

3. Research Questions
The authors aimed to address the following questions:
• What is the nature of young children’s digital literacy practices in
the home?
• What is the nature of children’s interaction with other members of
the family and wider networks in their digital literacy practices?

4. Methodology
The researchers investigated how digital literacy practices are
embedded into family life within a case study methodology.
Parents were given a digital still camera and digital camcorder for the
duration of the project and asked to use them whenever they wished
to record their children’s digital literacy practices
Family members were actively involved in the research
process and parents were described as co-researchers.

5. Data Analysis
The data indicated that children live in media-rich homes,
surrounded by a range of printed media and technologies.
Five themes emerged from data analysis:
1. Pervasiveness of digital practices in children’s lives
2. Children’s development of skills, knowledge and understanding in
relation to multimodal, multi-media texts and practices
3. Children’s engagement with popular culture and the relationship to
their literacy practices
4. Children’s understanding of digital literacy and social networking
5. Family scaffolding of children’s literacy practices and intergenerational
digital literacy practices

6. Pervasiveness
Pervasiveness of digital practices in children’s lives
- Findings demonstrated that digital literacy practices were part of
children’s daily lives.
- The practices recorded and documented were typical in their
daily routines.
- Technology was reported as transparent and
pervasive (naturally present)

7. Development
Children’s development of skills, knowledge and understanding in relation
to multimodal, multi-media texts and practices
- Parents reported that their children moved fluently across media in their
meaning-making practices and, in some cases, were more confident
than parents in this regard.
- Remarkable competence in communicating using a range of modes and
media (distinct from parents’history of experiences with technologies)

8. Engagement
Children’s engagement with popular culture and the relationship to
their literacy practices
- Children demonstrated to be passionate about popular characters
from cartoons and kids’ movies.
- This engagement is commonly seen in the home, but not in ECE
contexts, which creates a rupture between children’s experiences
with technologies at home and at school settings.

9. Understanding
Children’s understanding of digital literacy and social networking
- Kids were aware of technology use as a social practice (they could
text message by themselves or pretended to do so)
- Immersion in family practices is a significant element of children’s
learning about the purposes for literacy in everyday life.

10. Scaffolding
Family scaffolding of children’s literacy practices
and intergenerational digital literacy practices
- Parents used didactic pedagogies to teach children specific skills,
such as operational, cultural understanding and critical skills.
- Parents were central to the development of children’s growing
understanding about multimodal texts and practices, whether they
felt they were being overt about this or not.
- Older family members can be instrumental in offering children
meaningful opportunities for communication.

11. Conclusion
- Although this study involved only four case studies, the findings
resonate with those from large-scale surveys of this age group’s
digital literacy practices.
- The study suggests that 21st century, ‘emergent digital literacy’
practices are developed in multilingual, multimodal and multimedia
communicative acts and the children in these families are acquiring
complex knowledge about the way in which communication takes
place in a digital world.