‘Let's write a shopping list on the phone together’: Parents' digital literacy activities with their preschoolers and the children's early literacy skills

Background The study describes preschoolers' digital home environment, focusing on parent–child writing interactions using a smartphone and exploring its contribution to children's early literacy. Methods Participants were 65 Israeli preschoolers ( M = 62.37 months) from middle SES and one of their parents. Parents responded to questionnaires assessing the digital home environment (prevalence of digital devices, parental involvement in selecting digital content, children's independent digital activities and screen time). Parents were video recorded while assisting their children in writing a shopping list of three products using a smartphone (keyboard). We analysed how parents helped children segment words into their respective sounds (grapho‐phonemic mediation) and type letters independently (printing mediation) and their reference to the orthography. Children's literacy skills (letter knowledge, phonological awareness and early writing) were assessed individually. Results Findings showed that the homes are rich with technology and children are engaged daily with various digital devices. The level of parental involvement in selecting their children's digital content and the quality of their writing support positively related to children's early literacy skills. Children's independent digital activities were negatively related to their literacy skills. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the nature of parental writing support predicted children's early literacy beyond parental involvement in selecting digital content and children's independent digital activities. Conclusions The study reveals the benefits of parental involvement in their children's digital world and highlights the strength of parental writing support and the potential of parent–child digital activities in promoting children's early literacy. Highlights What is already known about this topic Children's digital home environment has become a meaningful learning place and contributes to school readiness (Bus et al., 2015). Letter knowledge and phonological awareness are major predictors of reading and writing acquisition (Robins et al., 2014). Parent–child writing interactions using digital means support children's early literacy skills (Aram & Chorowicz‐Bar‐Am, 2016). What this paper adds The study emphasises the potential of preschoolers' digital literacy home environment, focusing on the nature of parents' writing support via a smartphone. Parental involvement in selecting digital content for their children is related to children's higher literacy skills while encouraging independent use of digital devices is related to children's lower literacy skills. The study underscores the crucial role of parents in children's digital literacy. Specifically, parents' digital writing support using a smartphone is shown to be a significant factor in children's higher literacy skills, even beyond the children's age and the digital home environment. Implications for theory, policy or practice Parents experience a conflict between the need to expose their children to forms of technology and the need to control and supervise this engagement with digital technologies (Edwards et al., 2017). Our study suggests that the solution to this conflict is to enable children's use of digital means and also carefully select the content to which children are exposed. The study may assist parents in mediating the writing world, using the smartphone to support children's readiness for school.