E-Reading the Wave of the Future

eBooks are quickly becoming one of the most popular options for children and parents alike. These online books have continued to grow in popularity, making it an important consideration for parents and teachers. However, a recent study showed just how important these book formats are, and how children are interacting with them.

The study reported that half of all children aged 13 and under utilize e-readers and the like to access interactive apps and children’s books. Additionally, this same report also showed that well over 80% of these children were reading books online once a week at the minimum. What was even more surprising was the fact that parents were also understanding and agreeing with the idea that these types of children’s books are the way to go, even if they had to pay extra to allow their child to access them.

Growing Popularity
Online books of all kinds have been growing rapidly, with Amazon reporting higher ebook sales than paper ones as far back as 2011. While this fact is obviously not marking an end to the traditional book reading experience, it does show that ereading is quickly becoming a popular way of enjoying books. While some parents are concerned with the differences in reading a digital format compared to a paper book, many others have already embraced this concept.

Interactive apps for children’s books are a great option for allowing kids to engage in reading in ways that they find more enjoyable and easier to deal with. For parents, being able to choose a specific site for their children to enjoy their online time allows them to provide books in a much quicker fashion, helping to keep their children entertained during certain times. This method of reading also allows for greater flexibility, especially for parents who work late and are unable to make it to a library before they close.

Children Love Technology
Every parent knows just how much children enjoy playing with Smartphones and other gadgets. This enjoyment means that children can use these items to access storybook apps rather than other, questionable sites while mom or dad are busy. In addition, since all parents want to know that their children are reading without being forced to do so, it becomes easy to see why ereading is currently a booming pastime.

Engagement is Key
As with any type of reading, ensuring that your children are engaging with the materials they read is important. Interactive children’s books provide this engagement in many ways, including as a learning tool. Many ebooks provide services that allow children to click on words they don’t understand so that they can find out what the word means. These built in dictionaries help to further a child’s learning by helping them to learn new words, without having to ask or simply skip over it.

If you want to keep your child interested in reading, you need to take the time to find some storybook apps so that your child can continue to learn and grow while reading.

If you are concerned about what your child is accessing online, setting up pages that go directly to children’s storybooks and other educational apps will ensure that they are only visiting appropriate sites, and that they are learning in the process.

Source:
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3752572
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8622939/Digital-Books-for-Children.html