Educational apps alone won't teach your kid to read

[Commentary] As partners with the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a national coalition examining reading problems, scanned the technology and literacy landscape examining new products and programs. What we found was a digital Wild West, especially in the teeming app marketplace.

Tens of thousands of apps are labeled educational and marketed to parents who receive little to no information about whether and how they work. Most of the top-selling reading apps appear to teach only the most basic of literacy skills. They lean toward easy-to-teach tasks, such as identifying the ABCs, but don't address higher-level competencies that young children also need to become strong readers, such as developing vocabulary and understanding words in a narrative. A snapshot of the iTunes App Store's most popular paid literacy apps showed that 45 percent targeted letters and sounds and half focused on phonics. Only 5 percent covered vocabulary, and none addressed comprehension or the ability to tell stories. Many “reading” apps are essentially flashy flashcards: Click on a set of letters and the audio kicks on, uttering the letter's sounds. Move to the next set and repeat. This imbalance comes as research shows that knowing the ABCs and other basic literacy skills, while important, are not enough to help children become strong readers. Children need background knowledge and vocabulary, too. With the advent of new technologies, we are at an opportune moment for harnessing digital media to support parents, educators, and children in building the next generation's reading skills. But technology's potential to be a game changer will not be reached unless technology is tapped to provide vital new supports for parents and educa­tors. At its best, the technology complements the work of trained teachers and parents. It doesn't replace it.

[Lisa Guernsey is director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation. Michael H. Levine is executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.]