Category: Inquiry

My Inquiry project centered around introducing digital tools for my 6-year-old daughter. We have been a no-screen family, both at her dad’s house and mine. We have preferred not to give her an iPad or tablet even when the grandparents offered to buy one when she was 2 years old. She is a very active child and not having a device for her has never been a problem. I decided the time was right to begin introducing her to the world of digital technology as she has started to use iPads at school for learning. For grade 2 next year, we are starting part home/online school and part in-school learning. Therefore, I need to prepare for some home learning with digital tools. After reviewing BC’s Digital Framework and reading the competencies for Kindergarten to Grade 2, I was surprised at the level of skill required, such as the ability to read comprehensively to use search functions appropriately. I decided to take small steps and go at our own pace by introducing some learning apps at home so I could gauge digital competency while also setting clear limits and boundaries around usage.

Over the course of the semester, we tried 4 different learning apps:  

Khan Academy is my favourite as a parent because it offers a varied mix of literacy and numeracy activities. My child’s favourite is by far the Prodigy app. She plays this app at school too and it is the one she asks for again and again. It is also the one that brings up the most frustration. A huge factor that has influenced this inquiry-based learning project is that my daughter is neurodivergent. We are currently going through the assessment process of an ADHD diagnosis and the way her brain works has impacted the way I am introducing these digital tools to her. Seeing as we have only tried apps and not open usage of the internet, safety has not been an issue we have had to discuss yet. The biggest learning that this inquiry project has been the setting of limits and boundaries to ensure healthy usage of screens. Below is a more detailed description of what has been learned.

I have had to acknowledge that what I perceive as good apps for my child is not necessarily what she perceives as good. I am looking for the app to be educational to practice her literacy and numeracy skills, she is looking for the app to be fun and get a dopamine hit when she ‘wins’ or is successful at completing tasks. Trying to balance the two with both of our emotions has been challenging but did open more conversation about recognizing her body cues whilst engaging with a screen.

There have been numerous studies researching if there are links between screen time and ADHD including causality and potential impacts. However, the general concluding consensus is that the studies present conflicting results, and further research is needed to understand the nuances of the ADHD and screen time relationships (Beyens et al 2018, Ghosh et al 2024). This leaves parents, such as myself, in space where navigating screen time with an ADHD child is difficult with no guidelines around managing screen time or impacts of digital tools.

In conclusion, this inquiry project has been an interesting process that has opened a space for me to start sharing digital tools with my child. It will be an ongoing process, and we will have to take small steps depending on our emotional regulation skills. I can see the benefits in using educational apps, but screen times does come with some unexpected challenges. We did not get to the stage of introducing the internet or needing parental controls as there was so much to unpack from the introduction of apps. I am glad I have waited this long to bring devices into my child’s world as it definitely needs to be handled consciously. There is still so much that is not studied or understood with the effects of screen time on young children, especially neurodivergent brains.

References

Beyens, I., Valkenburg, P. M., & Piotrowski, J. T. (2018). Screen media use and ADHD-related behaviors: Four decades of research. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(40), 9875–9881. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1611611114

Ghosh, Ambarish & SK, Maidul & Oza, Raghav. (2024). Screen time and effects on attention deficient hyperactivity disorder in children – A systematic review. Asian Journal of Medical Sciences. 15. 269-277. 10.3126/ajms.v15i5.62847.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380276735_Screen_time_and_effects_on_attention_deficient_hyperactivity_disorder_in_children_-_A_systematic_review

I chose two literacy apps to introduce to my child and observe how she used them. I wanted to find out if she enjoyed them and how they interacted with her learning process. My child attends a Montessori program through the regular Canadian school system so she is used to tactile and sensory ways of learning letters, letter sounds, and reading words. I wondered how an app on a screen measured up to learning from a teacher and self-directed language activities. I also wondered how my child would react to the apps when she got the questions wrong, she is neurodivergent and has big feelings when she thinks she is failing. There was some resistance to trying the literacy apps as they are “learning” and not game-based like the math app she likes Prodigy but we persisted and gave them a try.

The first app we tried was Learn to Read: Sight Words by RV AppStudios. It is a simple design with cartoon-like characters that are present when playing games. It has eight choices of word games on the home screen for children to pick from. We tried out 4 of the games but none of them held my child’s attention for too long and she quickly got bored after a few minutes in each game. The tiger cartoon “Lucus” makes a sound when you get an answer wrong, to my surprise my child laughed at the sound and was not triggered by the “wrong” answer she gave. In some of the games it gave hints when you got the answer wrong a couple of time and others there were no hints. The overall theme reminds me of the toddler program Cocomelon and the theme may be a little too young for my 6-and-a-half-year-old.

The second literacy app we tried was Duolingo (Duo) ABC which has a much better learning progression program. There are different levels and different digital “reading books” that are then used to explore words, sounds, letters and sentence structure as the level progresses. This app is more advanced in supporting a child to learn literacy. My child could operate it without me as it reads out loud any instructions which she was able to follow easily and have success in the activities. She asked to play this one again several times and does not seem to get bored of the different stories and activities.

While I am still skeptical about children learning from literacy apps they can be useful as a tool to support overall learning. My child refuses to do any homework or practice spelling since she is very anxious about getting things wrong. The Duo ABC app provided a practice space that was away from any intentions set by an adult and she could have success in practicing literacy skills in a fun way. Further investigating would be needed to assess if the app could support learning new literacy skills instead of having lessons with a teacher but a good resource to have if a child refuses intentional lessons from an adult.

After chatting with my 6-year-old about balancing screen time and how it can affect our eyes and brains, it was time to introduce some apps and games for her to try. The device we are using is a 7″ Amazon Fire tablet which we have only been using to watch Netflix when we are traveling. It does not have a case for holding or standing which could be a problem when she needs to use one of her hands to operate the games. However, for this introduction, her lap and knees sufficed as props to hold up the tablet whilst in use. The first app we tried was a math app called Prodigy which she currently uses at school. We used her school log-in codes so she could continue her progress from school at home. This tablet is slow so starting the games and loading took a few minutes. Once we were in she was able to get started in a game.

At first, she was very excited to play the battle games and chose the world in which she had been playing at school (I did not understand the world concept but it didn’t seem to matter to the game). The battle-type game reminded me of Pokémon battles as you use different “powers” to defeat other characters. This part of the game was much more exciting for her and what she was looking forward to. The math questions are all text-based so she needed me to read them to her to understand how to answer them. There is a button for it to read the question out loud but we couldn’t get it to work. The first set of questions was addition to 20, which she knows but we used her fingers and mine to get the answers. The next set of questions was measurement and whether the image was longer or shorter. The third set of questions was about counting sporadic placed and coloured dots which confused her and was frustrating to complete. She needed an adult to sit with her to complete the questions and this is not something she could do independently.

She played well with my engagement for 45 minutes but did get upset when I said that our time was up. We returned the next day but the experience was very different as she lost the same battle multiple times with the characters. This created a big upset and we almost had the tablet flung across the room in frustration. Later I tried to talk about it and how we could pick another world to battle in but she has was resistant and has not wanted to try the game since. Overall the game is exciting but I feel like it is the battle concept that children would like and the math questions are an afterthought to appease adults. Upon reflection, this tablet is too small to see the written text and I recommend using a larger screen. I definitely will try other math apps as in terms of learning I would say this program provides minimal learning opportunities and is just a battle game in disguise.

For my inquiry project, I have chosen to take a deep dive into the digital tools available for children. I am curious about how educational programs, games, and access to the Internet are introduced to young children in healthy ways. There is information available for parents regarding children’s physical health and “screen time” but not so much is available for helping parents to introduce digital tools effectively and safely. As a parent of a six-year-old, I have avoided giving my child a tablet or iPad up until now. My child has access to TV shows on Netflix and asks me to “look up this on your phone” when she is curious to know an answer to her many random questions such as “Do bees have black blood?”. Digital tools are in her home environment but I have not given her free access. At school, she has access to an iPad to take photos of her work so I can see it through an app on my phone. She also has tasks such as using a record mode with a microphone to record an oral story which I can see in the app. It did not occur to me that my child in Kindergarten (and Grade 1) would need a digital literacy framework as part of her education. I will be part home schooling her for the next academic year and will have to introduce either a tablet or iPad for learning apps so I would like to understand how to introduce these tools to her in a good way.

In class, Valerie shared BC’s Digital Literacy Framework for K-12 which was an eye-opening read. I noticed that many of the competencies that were listed from K required a child to have the ability to read or write. For example under Information Literacy it states “understands that keyword searching is an effective way to locate information on the Internet and knows how to select keywords to produce the best search results. (Gr. K-2)”. This competency may be unreachable for my child, particularly since she has difficulties reading and spelling. There is a section on Internet Safety and I wondered if her teachers at school had/or will explain any boundaries to keep her safe when exploring online or if this is considered a parent thing to teach. Reading this framework raised many questions for me and I am unsure where to seek the answers.

One resource that I found informative was the Common Sense Education Digital Citizenship Curriculum. This website has information for parents such as reviews for games and apps, reviews, and age recommendations for TV shows and films. For teachers, there are lesson plans for a wide range of digital literacy curriculum. What caught my eye was the introduction videos for children titled “Meet the Arms of the Digital Citizens” where characters with different purposes give children short pieces of information. The “arms” character with long arms talks about balance and how to balance your time with screens and physical health. I will show my child this video to open up a conversation about boundaries when using tablets/iPads and come up with an agreed amount of time to spend on apps and games.