Nursery World - Learning & Development: Digital Technology

To prepare young children for life spent increasingly online, parents and early years practitioners need to monitor their web use and lead by example, writes John Bolton

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As we stride towards the 30th birthday of the World Wide Web, young children are going online at a younger age, more frequently, and in ever diverse ways. In doing so, they are developing social skills and acquiring vital habits for future learning. Intuitive apps, touchscreen technology and the sheer ubiquity of the web have revolutionised how children spend their time.

Regulated access to a tablet connected to the web offers a young child the potential for near-endless wonder. There are interactive story books, colouring books with limitless pages, and infinite fenced-off virtual worlds for them to explore. Free from the barriers of mice and keyboards, even children in the sensorimotor stage can pick up a tablet and touch buttons and icons with relative ease, and around 21 per cent of children aged three to four now have their own tablet.

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