Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Essays

Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Essays Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Screen Time? ByDOUGLAS QUENQUAOCT. 11, 2014 Clifford the Big Red Dog looks fabulous on an iPad . He sounds good, too tap the screen and hear him pant as a blue truck roars into the frame. "Go, truck, go!" cheers the narrator. But does this count as story time? Or is it just screen time for babies? It is a question that parents, pediatricians and researchers are struggling to answer as children's books, just like all the other ones, migrate to digital media. For years, child development experts have advised parents to read to their children early and often, citing studies showing its linguistic, verbal and social benefits. In June, the American Academy of Pediatrics advised doctors to remind parents at every visit that they should read to their children from birth, prescribing books as enthusiastically as vaccines and vegetables. On the other hand, the academy strongly recommends no screen time for children under 2, and less than two hours a day for older children. At a time when reading increasingly means swiping pages on a device, and app stores are bursting with reading programs and learning games aimed at infants and preschoolers, which bit of guidance should parents heed? The answer, researchers say, is not yet entirely clear. "We know how children learn to read," said Kyle Snow, the applied research director at the National Association for the Education of Young Children. "But we don't know how that process will be affected by digital technology." Part of the problem is the newness of the devices. Tablets and e-readers have not been in widespread use long enough for the sorts of extended studies that will reveal their effects on learning. Dr. Pamela High, the pediatrician who wrote the June policy for the pediatrics group, said electronic books were intentionally not addressed. "We tried to do a strongly evidence-based policy statement on the issue of reading starting at a very young age," she said. "And there isn't any data, really, on e-books." But a handful of new studies suggest that reading to a child from an electronic device undercuts the dynamic that drives language development. "There's a lot of interaction when you're reading a book with your child," Dr. High said. "You're turning pages, pointing at pictures, talking about the story. Those things are lost somewhat when you're using an e-book." In a2013 study, researchers found that children ages 3 to 5 whose parents read to them from an electronic book had lower reading comprehension than children whose parents used traditional books. Part of the reason, they said, was that parents and children using an electronic device spent more time focusing on the device itself than on the story (a conclusionshared by at leasttwoother studies). "Parents were literally putting their hands over the kids' hands and saying, Wait, don't press the button yet. Finish this up first,' " said Dr. Julia Parish-Morris, a developmental psychologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the lead author of the 2013 study that was conducted at Temple University. Parents who used conventional books were more likely to engage in what education researchers call "dialogic reading," the sort of back-and-forth discussion of the story and its relation to the child's life that research has shown are key to a child's linguistic development. Complicating matters is that fewer and fewer children's e-books can strictly be described as books, say researchers. As technology evolves, publishers are adding bells and whistles that encourage detours. "What we're really after in reading to our children is behavior that sparks a conversation," said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple and co-author of the 2013 study. "But if that book has things that disrupt the conversation, like a game plopped right in the middle of the story, then it's not offering you the same advantages as an old-fashioned book." Of course, e-book publishers and app developers point to interactivity as an educational advantage, not a distraction. Many of those bells and whistles Clifford's bark, the sleepy narration of "Goodnight Moon," the appearance of the word "ham" when a child taps the ham in the Green Eggs and Ham app help the child pick

The Power of Winning Even When it Looks Like You’re Losing

The Power of Winning Even When it Looks Like You’re Losing Competitive nature I was a late bloomer when it came to the on-line Scrabble game Words with Friends, somehow not discovering the game until last fall. Not surprisingly, I was immediately hooked. As of this writing, I’ve played 136 games, 105 of which I won, 30 of which I lost, and 1 of which I tied (that was my 15-year-old very precocious nephew). I’m a competitive person, and have been since playing backgammon with my dad at a young age. He would never let me win. I like to play to win, and expect others to do the same. When I first started playing Words with Friends, I lost about one out of every three games. Then I discovered the Word Strength tool that tells me if I’ve found the highest possible scoring word. That kicked my level of playing (and my average word score) up a few notches. I always attempt to identify that high-scoring word, even if I don’t end up playing it. If I don’t find it, I feel defeated. Tempted to quit? I have learned something about myself as a competitor: I don’t like to quit. Not finding the highest scoring word feels like quitting. If I’m losing a game, I create a new game for myself to try to close the gap. Sometimes I succeed. I’ll tell you one thing: I have never resigned a game because my opponent played a 100+ point word, or because I was behind by 100 points, or for any other reason. I will always finish my games, and if I lose, I lose fair and square. In fact, as much as I don’t like to lose, winning all the time is almost worse. At one point I amassed a 34-game winning streak and actually complained about it. What was the point of playing if I always won? I am motivated by challenge. I will keep playing someone who beats me every time, because one day I will win and I will feel awesome about that. Not everyone is like me. I had one opponent last week who beat me two games in a row. I was celebrating having a worthy opponent and was excited to keep playing with her; then when I started to beat her by a significant margin in our third game, she abruptly resigned. Similarly, another opponent who pulled out ahead early in our game resigned when I overtook her by changing her word, AZINE, into HYDRAZINE on a triple-word score. What happened to the thrill of the fight? I shared my experience with my hairdresser and she told me about a friend who started a competition amongst her friends as to who could take the most steps in a day. When her friend felt sick the first morning of the challenge, she quit the whole thing. She was that unwilling to lose, or to work hard to come from behind. I’ve heard of people who quit while they’re ahead, which to me means building on your wins and not letting yourself go stale. I’ve recently heard this called â€Å"flipping on the up† – making a strong move when you’re at a peak to amplify your success. But quitting when you start to fall behind is, to me, a sign of someone who is not willing to feel hurt or to fight through the tough times. Setting yourself up for a comeback In sports, comebacks are the most thrilling stories. You may recall the 2004 Boston Red Sox, the first team ever to come back from a 0-3 record in the American League Championship- and to then clinch the World Series in a sweep. This was their first World Series win in 86 years. Similarly, in the resume writing world, some of the most powerful bullets are the ones that report a turnaround. Someone who pulled a company, a department or a team out of a slump is a valuable person to have around. That’s a person who doesn’t let bad news get them down. From what I can tell, the best way to stay motivated to win when you’re losing is to believe it’s possible to win- and at the same time that there’s a real possibility of losing. Convincing yourself there’s no way you’ll win will not motivate you, and thinking you’ll always win will also not motivate you. Studies show that teams who are slightly behind are actually more likely to win than the ones slightly ahead. That’s the point where the possibility of winning is real, and so is the possibility of losing. That edge is what gets the adrenaline going and pushes people into high gear. How do you respond when you start falling behind? Do you quit while you’re ahead and use your success to reach your next goal, or do you quit when you think you will lose? How does this show up in your life? Invite me So†¦ Who wants to play Words with Friends with me? Invite me at brandyesq.