The Impact of Digital Media Use on Home Reading Environments of Early Primary School Students

Abstract

The home literacy environment (HLE) is one of the most widely reported predictors of early literacy development and refers to the availability of print resources, the frequency of sharing reading experiences between parents and children and parents’ attitudes toward reading. The fast penetration of the digital media into family life has brought new factors that interact with, reconstruct and in some ways threaten the old HLE. The review explores the impact of using digital media on the HLE of children in early primary school (grades 1–3, aged 6–9) from three theoretical perspectives: Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system model; the multidimensional concept of HLE; and the hypotheses of displacement and complementarity of digital media effects on literacy-relevant family activities. Longitudinal, experimental and cross-sectional studies suggest that passive screen time displaces parent-child shared reading time and relates negatively to early literacy outcomes, while interactive digital reading tools, e.g., e-books with dialogic features, educational audiobooks and literacy applications, can enhance HLE when used with active parental mediation. Parental media literacy and family socioeconomic status (SES) are the key predictors of HLE, depending on whether digital media use contributes to or hinders HLE. The report concludes with some pragmatic suggestions for parents, educators and policymakers towards the creation of digitally connected HLEs that retain the relational and linguistic elements of traditional shared reading.