Australian Study: Is Digital Literacy Undercutting Literacy?
A newly released study in Australia raises questions about whether digital literacy is actually undermining children’s ability and interest in reading.
A Four Corners investigation has found there are growing fears among education experts that screen time is contributing to a generation of skim readers with poor literacy, who may struggle to gain employment later in life as low-skilled jobs disappear.
By the age of 12 or 13, up to 30 per cent of Australian children’s waking hours are spent in front of a screen, according to the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.
Robyn Ewing, a Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Sydney, said this was having a tangible impact on vocabulary and literacy.
“Children who have been sat in front of a screen from a very early age start school with thousands and thousands of words less, vocabulary-wise, than those who have been meaningfully communicated with,” Professor Ewing said.
Four Corners gained exclusive access to the initial results of a national survey of 1,000 teachers and principals conducted by the Gonski Institute.
The survey found excessive screen time had a profound impact on Australian school students over the past five years, making them more distracted and tired, and less ready to learn.
The Growing Up Digital Australia study has been described by its authors as a “call to action” on the excessive screen use “pervasively penetrating the classroom”.
The study lead, Professor Pasi Sahlberg, said while teachers reported there were benefits to technology in the classroom, most also believed that technology was a huge distracting force in young people.
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November 19, 2019 at 01:04AM