IDENTIFYING HOME DIGITAL LITERACY PRACTICE IN CHINESE YOUNG CHILDREN

The development of children’s digital literacy is essential in the st century. In a digital age, children have an access to various forms of digital tools in early years. Hence, investigating digital literacy of children at home environment has gained an increased attention among parents, early childhood educators, and educational researchers. This paper adopted a mixed research design to examine parents’ belief, practice, and communication with children through various digital tools in a home environment.  Chinese parents with children from - years completed a survey on their belief, practice, and communication with their children at home. Parent interview with  families further identifi ed the popular technologies used at home, the children’s digital literacy practice, and parents’ concerns about children’s use of digital technologies. The study shows that parents and children have been actively engaged in using various forms of digital technologies to play, learn and complete tasks. Furthermore, parents hold positive attitudes towards using digital technologies in a home environment. One of the important practical implications is to call for more tailored child and family programs to support parents in guiding their children to choose, use, and communicate through digital technologies in a more effective way.