“… The very best kinds of playthings are open-ended ...
Read MoreWhen my daughter was about a year old, she would pretend to talk on the phone. She held up a banana or a plastic toy to her ear and carried on an animated conversation—mostly babbling, with some real words and phrases mixed in. Now, at age 3, her pretend play has become more intricate and complex. It involves a rotating cast of...
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Fred Rogers understood that early language development is important for a child’s ability to relate to the world and the people in it. Fred believed words help children better understand and manage their “inner drama.” “What is mentionable is more manageable,” he would often say. Fred also understood that conversation between child and adult is critical for children’s intellectual and emotional...
Read MoreThis post was originally published at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, and appears here with permission. This spring, I was given an extremely exciting opportunity when the Fred Rogers Center named me an Early Career Fellow. The mission of the Fred Rogers Center is to advance the fields of early learning and children’s media by acting as a catalyst for communication,...
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To engage in real debate, critics of screen time need to name the apps they are concerned about, argues Children's Technology Review Editor Warren Buckleitner, a presenter at the 2014 Fred Forward Conference. He names 10 specific research questions about kids and apps. The Great Screen Debate is stuck. Despite the forward thinking of the joint position statement on children and...
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It's been quite a week in the children's media world. While preparing for the week ahead last Sunday, I noticed an article on Huffington Post that was spreading virally through my friends on Facebook. The article was a call to ban all hand-held devices from children under the age of 12. Backing up the claim, the author cited a long...
Read MoreYou may have heard young children in your life talking about time they spent online on sites like Webkinz or Club Penguin and you may wonder why your 7-year-old niece, for example, keeps going back for more. Virtual worlds are immersive 2-D or 3-D spaces in which users adopt an avatar, or online character, in order to represent themselves and interact...
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Parents of children between the ages of 2 and 4 say more than three-quarters of their children’s media use is educational. Yet the media diet for 5 to 10-year-olds slides steeply toward junk food, their parents say. These are the findings of a new survey by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. The report recommends paying closer attention to creating high-interest...
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Experts in media and young children agree; how the youngest children use technology—ideally, with caregivers and with an eye on their learning and development—is more important than how old they are when they start. It’s the latest in baby gear, and it’s got everybody talking. The Fisher-Price iPad Apptivity Seat is a reclining baby seat with a toy bar and a...
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Recently, author Paul Tough was the Saint Vincent College Threshold Series lecturer, as the opening event in celebration of the Fred Rogers Center’s 10th anniversary. Tough’s recent book, “How Children Succeed,” explains the brain science behind the toxic effects of long-term stress on young children and how to prevent and undo the harm it produces. Fred Rogers knew the importance of...
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