What do they do digitally? Identifying the home digital literacy practices of young children in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Young children develop understandings about literacy from birth through experiences of print in their home environments. Today, written text is often present in children’s homes in both print and digital forms. What kind of technologies are young children accessing at home and for what purposes? This paper discusses research findings from questionnaires completed by parents about the home digital literacy practices of 105 Turkish children aged 5–7 years and the nature of parental support for digital technology use at home. Parent interviews with five families further identified the technologies used, the children’s repertoire of digital literacy practices and issues confronting parents about children’s use of technology. The study revealed that children were actively engaged in multimodal practices through the use of digital technologies in play and learning in their homes. The main implications of this study are that it is important that educators be aware of children’s existing digital home literacy practices as a foundation for further literacy learning and that parents may need support in understanding how technology use can contribute to children’s literacy learning. Further research is warranted in this area.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood
• early literacy
• digital literacy
• parents
• home
• technology
• digital practices

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the children, their families and the schools that participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In Turkey some kindergartens are attached to public primary schools.

2. TRT Cocuk is a Turkish national station which broadcasts programs for children. It also has a website that provides filter options for families.

3. Digital Medya ve Cocuk is a media platform where a Turkish private university’s team share news and research results with parents.