Master of Library and Information Studies alumnus University of British Columbia School of Information
Digital reading apps, such as Epic or Razkids, combine collections of online texts with tools that encourage different forms of literary practice. Targeted primarily to early grades (K to 3), these apps typically gamify the reading experience, offering teachers, librarians, and parents an engaging mode to deliver instruction to children through a fun experience.
This poster presents data from a preliminary University of British Columbia research study investigating children’s use of reading apps and how it contributes to their literacy practice at school and home. Interviews were conducted with parent-child dyads and examined differences between parent and children perspectives on the importance and value of reading, preferences between print and ebooks, and parental understanding of data collection/information privacy in reading apps. All three participating groups were bilingual families, which revealed differences in user needs due to the multilingual makeup of the home.