Designing Beyond the Screen: in Pre-K Classrooms

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This week's readings deepened my understanding of what it means to design learning that goes beyond the screen, especially in early childhood settings like Pre-K. At this age, learning is deeply sensory, physical, and social. While digital tools have their place, young children need experiences that allow them to explore, move, talk, and create with their hands. As Leander, Phillips, and Taylor (2010) explain, learning happens across spaces, not just on devices, but through interaction with people, objects, and environments. 

This perspective was echoed in the Alki Journal (Tolliver, 2020), which emphasized that digital literacy in early childhood should always be paired with physical engagement and social interaction. Tolliver argues that screens should enhance, not replace, the fundamental ways children make sense of their world through play, exploration, and storytelling. 

Hsu & Wang (2017) also contribute a crucial view: rethinking how language learning happens in early childhood by foregrounding language, not simply as verbal or textual output, but as meaning-making in multiple modes. They argue for seeing children's linguistic development as dynamic, inviting not only listening and speaking, but also drawing, gesturing, playing, and interacting with others and with culture. This aligns closely with "new literacies" approaches that emphasize multimodal communication and culturally responsive practices. 

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In a Pre-K classroom, we can support early "new literacies" by encouraging children to make meaning with many tools, talking, drawing, moving, building, and yes, occasionally using technology. Our role is to help them see connections between their everyday experiences and the world of communication, even if they are just beginning to understand letters and words.

Talking About New Literacies with Young Children

At the PreK level, conversations about new literacies do not sound like critical media analysis, but they do begin with noticing and naming how we communicate. For example, we might ask:

• "What did you see on your tablet at home?"
• "Who do you talk to on the phone?"
• "Can you show me how you play your favorite game?"

These questions open space for children to share their experiences with technology in ways that are meaningful to them. From there, we can begin to scaffold skills like turn-taking in digital games, identifying emotions in videos, or understanding that someone made the video or picture they are watching. These are foundational building blocks of digital citizenship and media literacy (Kellner & Share, 2007), adapted to early childhood.

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Hsu & Wang's (2017) idea suggests that even in early years, children benefit when we invite them to reflect a bit on how they are using language and communication, not to judge, but to heighten awareness. i.e., after drawing, asking: "How did you decide which picture to draw first?" or "Why did you use that sound or word there?" These small reflective moves support metalinguistic awareness, building a foundation for more complex literacy later. 

As Keehne and Blankenship (2018) describe in their exploration of children's emergent media awareness, even young learners can begin to understand that digital content is created by people with intentions and purposes. Their study shows how early conversations can plant the seeds of critical media understanding, in developmentally appropriate ways. 

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Equity and Engagement in the Pre-K Classroom

Equity in Pre-K starts with access and inclusion. As Warschauer and Matuchniak (2010) remind us, equity in digital learning is not just about having the tools, it is about having meaningful opportunities to use them. Some children may have daily access to tablets and smart devices at home, while others may have never used on before. 

To support all learners, I:

• Provide shared, guided experiences with technology in the classroom. 
• Use simple, intuitive apps that invite creativity (like digital drawing tools or photo books)
• Pair digital work with hands-on, physical exploration.
• Create flexible activities that honor home language, culture, and ways of knowing. 

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The importance of inclusion and culturally responsive practice was highlighted in School Library Journal (Cooke, 2018), which urged educators to ensure digital tools do not replicate dominant cultural narratives but instead elevate children's diverse experiences and voices. Designing learning experiences that affirm identity and community values is foundational to equitable literacy development. 

Hsu & Wang (2017) add that when designing language learning, we should attend to whose language, what registers, what modes of expression are honored, that is, ensuring children can use their home languages, dialects, body language, art, etc., and that these are seen as legitimate and valuable. This helps engagement, identity affirmation, and equity. 

Keeping engagement high also means being playful and responsive. Pre-K learners thrive when learning feels like discovery. When designing experiences, I always ask: Can children touch, talk, move, and imagine through this activity? 

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Example Project: "My Day" Story Collage

Context: Pre-K literacy and language development

Learning Goal: 

1. Analog Phase:

• Children draw pictures of key parts of their day (i.e., "I eat breakfast," "I go to the park")
• We talk through each drawing, helping them use oral language to tell the story in order. 
• We build a "storyline" by placing the drawings in sequence.

      2. Digital Phase: 

• With support, children take pictures of their drawings using a classroom tablet. 
• Using a simple storytelling app (like Book Creator), we record each child narrating their "My Day" story and upload their images. 
• Finished digital books are shared with families via email or class website. 

Why It Matters

This activity supports early literacy by connecting spoken language, visual storytelling and sequencing. It also bridges home and school experiences and invites children to be authors of their own stories in both physical and digital spaces. As Leander et al. (2010) suggest, learning moves across contexts and this project allows children to practice storytelling across paper, voice, and screen in a developmentally appropriate way. Hsu and Wang (2017) would argue that this kind of project helps children see language learning as not just about reading or writing but about making meaning across gestures, visuals, speech, and digital media. 

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Tensions and How I Address Them 

A common tension in Pre-K screen time concerns. To address this, I ensure that digital tools are used briefly, intentionally, and with adult guidance. Screens are never the focus; they are tools to support storytelling and sharing. I also make sure that families understand the purpose of digital projects and invite them to participate by viewing and discussing the stories at home. 

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Another challenge is balancing children's varied experience levels with technology and keeping in mind that some children are very familiar with tablets; others are not. To support all learners, I introduce tools slowly, using lots of modeling and peer collaboration. Children work in small groups or one-on-one with an adult, so no one is left out. 

Conclusion

Designing beyond the screen in Pre-K means creating rich, joyful, and flexible learning environments where children can explore, express, and connect across multiple modes. By blending digital tools with hands-on experiences and centering equity and engagement, we help our youngest learners build the foundations of 21st-century literacies in ways that are playful, inclusive, and developmentally sound. 

But perhaps, most importantly, designing beyond the screen helps us reframe what literacy looks like in early childhood. It reminds us that communication does not begin with writing paragraphs or typing on a keyboard, it begins when a child draws a picture to tell a story, when they speak into a microphone and hear their voice played back, or when they recognize themselves as the author of their own narrative. These are not just cute activities, they are powerful acts of meaning-making.

As educators, we have the responsibility, and the opportunity, to meet children where they are: moving between home and school, between  spoken language and visual language, between the physical and the digital (Magnifico, Lammers, & Fields, 2018). By intentionally designing across these spaces, we are not just preparing students for the future, we are honoring the complex, connected ways they already learn and make sense of the world. 

In a time when technology is often seen as either a solution or a threat, early childhood classrooms can model a more balanced, human-centered approach, one that does not ask us to choose between screens and hands-on play, but instead invites us to thoughtfully integrate both. When done with care, creativity, and equity in mind, designing beyond the screen becomes a way of expanding what's possible for every child, every day. 

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References:

Cooke, N.A. (2018). The Digital Literacy Divide: Youth of Color and the Library Gap. School Library Journal. file:///C:/Users/Staff%20Account/Downloads/EBSCO-FullText-09_22_2025.pdf 

Hsu, H., & Wang, S. (2017). Rethinking Language Learning. Literacy Today, 35(3), 28-29. https://sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Ftrade-journals%2Frethinking-language-learning%2Fdocview%2F1966005990%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8067 

Keehne, J., & Blankenship, R. (2018). New Literacies in the Early Years. Children's Technology and Engineering Journal, 22(4), 16-19. https://research-ebsco-com.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/c/hefeo2/search/details/hpk4irw4hv?db=a2h 

Kellner, D,. & Share, J. (2007). Critical medial literacy, democracy, and the reconstruction of education. In D. Macedo & S.R. Steinberg (Eds.), Media Literacy: A Reader (pp. 3-23). Peter Lang.

Leander, K.M., Phillips, N.C.., & Taylor, K.H. (2010). The Changing social spaces of learning: Mapping new mobilities. Review of Research in Education, 34(1), 329-394.

Magnifico, A.M., Lammers, J.C., & Fields, D.A. (2018). Affinity spaces, literacies and classrooms: tensions and opportunities. Literacy, 52(3), 145-152. https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/lit.12133 

Tolliver, D. (2020). Digital Literacy and Young Learners: Learning from the Ground Up Alki: The Washington Library Association Journal, 36(3), 14-18. https://wala.memberclicks.net/assets/Alki/Alki_December_2020.pdf

Warschauer, M., & Matuchniak, T. (2010). New technology and digital worlds: Analyzing evidence of equity in access, use, and outcomes. Review of Research in Education, 34(1), 179-225.