Our feature this week is from Omer Ginor, CEO of Touchoo, a publishing house for quality interactive book apps for toddlers and children. As you will read from his post, Omer is an advocate for the quality time spent between parents and children reading books. We are delighted to have him share these insights on Moms With Apps. The more Moms, Dads, caregivers and kids we have reading together, the better!
Sitting down with your preschooler to read a book (I’ll call this storytime) is an all important ritual: it influences the child’s emotional and social development, promotes literacy, forms reading habits and a love for books, and even – so I’ve learned – increases the child’s chances for success in school and subsequent success as an adult. Storytime is one of those rare quality moments when the parent-child magic happens.
In recent years, two processes have been working in opposite directions. The first is a very welcome process, which is the proliferation of reading to children by adults. The second, however, has a rather negative influence on reading habits and storytime. With digital media becoming more dominant in our lives, preschoolers are increasingly bombarded from all sides by fast and gripping stimuli which can be superficial and devoid of real value. Research shows that these stimuli cause kids to have shorter attention spans.
Storytime is in danger. The attention span of children is constantly shrinking and those precious quality moments are becoming scarce.
A few years back, touchscreens entered our lives. Touchscreens offer a very convenient and intuitive way to consume media. What my partners and I saw a couple of years ago is how intuitive and compelling this medium is for the very young ones. My son, 9 months old today, can already flip through pictures on my iPhone with great joy and satisfaction (device in airplane mode, safely held by me, of course). Touchscreens are, undoubtedly, amazingly intuitive.
Personal touchscreen devices brought with them e-books, interactive e-books and magazines, and interactive storybooks. Those are, in fact, a 3-in-1 combination: (1) a children’s storybook, (2) an e-book, (3) a place of reader-story interaction: manipulating the characters and what they do, getting positive and negative feedback for actions, playing games, creating, and actively learning (i.e. learning through doing and not through being taught). Having this type of interactive storybook around is very exciting since this is exactly the kind of book that can attract today’s toddlers and preschoolers to enjoy storytime once again. This type of of book also has added layers of educational benefits.
Our company, Touchoo, founded by four book-loving parents, creates such interactive story books for touchscreens. Each of the storybooks is created for a specific age group, and each has a different educational edge. For example, 1 Little Boy uses an active approach in teaching counting skills. Thumbelina, which will be released for the iPad and the iPhone in a few weeks, actively teaches kids to offer help when needed.
Reading an interactive story book is nothing short of revolutionary, and has the capacity to explore many developmental aspects and forms of engagement beyond the printed form.
The question is whether these books will, one day, replace the printed kind completely. Will we see only electronic devices used in storytime? Is it a fad that will soon vanish, leaving the tried-and-tested print book to fend for itself alone, or will a different future altogether take place?
I’ll leave this open to discussion. Personally, I believe the two media will end up living side by side. Interactive storybooks have the potential to bridge the widening gap between kids and reading. The interactive book will not replace the excitement kids have about their own books they can see on the shelf because real world objects are easier to connect with. Kids will keep asking for the print books. As parents, we grew up with real books and love them. Naturally we will try to pass that love on to our kids. Last but not least, the reading experience in the two media is quite different: young kids like to sometimes take the back seat and be lead by their parent through a story. This is where print books are suited to do the job just well as their e-counterparts.
Would love to know what you think of this and how you see these worlds evolve.
Omer Ginor, Touchoo
