Keep taking the tablets: iPads, story apps and early literacy • MERCHANT

Keep taking the tablets:

iPads, story apps and early literacy
Guy Merchant
Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Abstract

The rapid proliferation of story and game apps aimed at the early years has contributed to
the iPad’s visibility as a device for family entertainment and informal education. It is often
claimed that iPads and other touch screen devices place sophisticated media in the hands of users.
Moreover some have argued that the iPad is particularly appealing for young children because
of its weight, portability and intuitive touch-screen interface. This paper critically appraises
these claims by a close analysis of young children (14–22 months) in two story-app sharing
interactions with an adult. The data is drawn from a wider study based in early years settings
in the North of England. An analytical focus based on the material affordances of the iPad and
apps is developed and it is suggested that this is a fruitful approach to adopt. Not only does this
approach highlight important issues for practitioners, but it also suggests that the interface, and
the story-apps used, may not be quite as intuitive as has been suggested. The data also suggest
that broader socio-cultural issues may emerge from this sort of data.

Introduction that we are only just beginning to think about. Early

It is rapidly becoming difficult to talk about literacy
without reference to new technology. For some time we
have been encouraged to consider how literacy prac-
tices and possibilities are changing, how new genres
are emerging, and how new ways of producing and
consuming texts have developed (Cope & Kalantzis,
1999). Such is the level of saturation of technology
that early childhood, particularly in affluent econo-
mies, is now a site of considerable interest for the study
of digital literacies. Early childhood is infused with
technology  – from the prenatal stage, when the first
images of a baby are the scans displayed on computer
screens and mobile phones, and on into the first months
of life (Burnett & Merchant, 2012). Most babies will
spend quite a bit of time looking at screens (Rideout
& Hammel, 2006), they may well be shown a mobile
phone as a pacifier (Oksman & Rautiainen, 2003), and
in many cases their first toys will have digital compo-
nents. Early literacy development, for many children
born in the 21st Century, will involve various kinds of
digital mediation and this raises important issues for
parents, carers and educators. For a start the commer-
cial stakes are high, but also there are some crucially
important questions about learning and development
childhood literacy may begin to look rather different –
and since various forms of semiotic representation are
central to new media we may in the end need to re-draw
our maps of literacy development.
Although powerful portable devices have been
around for a while, ‘tablet’ computers were a bit of a
non-event until Apple launched the iPad in 2010. Since
then sales worldwide have been phenomenal, and other
manufacturers have rushed in to grab their portion of
the market share. The resultant level of tablet owner-
ship is substantial and increasing, and educators have
been quick to see the educational possibilities of these
touchscreen devices (Bannister, 2010; Merchant, 2012).
Some have argued that the iPad is particularly appealing
for young children because of its weight, its portability
and intuitive touch-screen interface. The rapid prolifer-
ation of apps aimed at the early years has increased the
iPad’s visibility as a device for family entertainment and
informal education. Apps now include a large range
of children’s stories and games, from new versions of
familiar texts to stories based on TV characters, as well
as ‘books’ and games specifically designed for iPads.
Practices such as book-sharing and bedtime stories,
familiar in some cultural contexts, can just as easily

Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2015 3

MERCHANT • Keep taking the tablets: iPads, story apps and early literacy
involve an iPad as they can a print book (Kucirkova,
Messer, Sheehy & Flewitt, 2013). At the moment there
is little published research on this topic even though
there is rapid take-up in homes and schools. Using chil-
dren’s stories on iPads raises all sorts of questions. Is
sharing a story on the iPad the same kind of experi-
ence as book-sharing? Clearly not, but in what ways
is it different and does it matter? How does a tablet
version enhance or constrain learning from stories?
What knowledge and skill is needed to support children
in more independent readings of these stories, and how
can this be facilitated in the early years and onwards (if
indeed it should in the first place)? Of course there are
many other issues as well – perhaps foremost amongst
these is how iPad ownership intersects with levels of
social and economic advantage and disadvantage; using
iPads in education may draw on the cultural capital
of some children and not others, thereby exacerbating
existing inequalities.
I want to begin here by returning to what I described
as the iPad’s appeal for young children: its weight,
portability and intuitive interface As suggested, these
characteristics appear to make it well-suited to educa-
tional activity (Burden, Hopkins, Male & Trala, 2014;
Pegrum, Oakley & Faulkner, 2013), and in particular
to story-sharing with young children. At the same time,
they seem to confer considerable advantages over the
digital competition (i.e. desktop computers, laptops and
e-readers). Literacy educators certainly need to know
more about what the iPad can and can’t do, and to
develop efficacious ways of integrating it in their early
years provision. In this paper then, I draw on recent
research in two early years settings in the North of
England, in order to make some preliminary obser-
vations on the use of iPads in story-sharing, focusing
particularly on the material affordances of the device
in the hands of young children and adults. In doing so I
aim to contribute to educational debate, and the empir-
ical investigation of the use of touch screen devices in
early literacy.
Research design
The data presented here are drawn from a larger project
which was guided by two over-arching aims:
• to examine the interactions of young children when
accessing books on ipads;
• to identify the ways in which the technology supports
early literacy development.
The research team was interested to know exactly
how young children respond to iPad stories, the types
of interactions that they have with them, and what
sorts of comparisons could then be made with what
4 Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2015
we know about the use of print texts, and particularly
picture books, in early childhood. In addition to this,
we were keen to identify the affordances of the iPad for
supporting young children’s early reading development,
both with and without adult support.
Accordingly, members of the research team worked
in two early years settings that cater for babies and
toddlers. Both were located in an urban area in the
North of England. Researchers conducted observa-
tions of babies and toddlers under three years of age as
they used iPad, sometimes for the first time, to look at
interactive stories both with and without adult support.
A variety of story-apps were preloaded and included
those with links to popular culture (The Lion King and
Peppa Pig’s Party) and those that had attracted positive
reviews (The Heart and the Bottle and The Three Little
Pigs). These iPad encounters were video-recorded for
subsequent analysis. Filming took place over three days
in each setting, and two researchers were present on
each occasion. This provided video footage of encoun-
ters from different points of view (where possible from
the front and back). Ethical practice was ensured at all
times and parental consent for the filming was agreed
beforehand.
In this paper, I use extracts from the data gathered
by my colleague and co-researcher Karen Daniels,
focusing on two different and contrasting iPad encoun-
ters. These have been selected not because they are in
any sense typical, but simply because they highlight
some of the issues associated with introducing iPads
into early years settings and, at the same time, bring
into sharp focus some key areas for future research.
A particular emphasis is given to the materiality of
the device. By looking at the physical interactions that
are involved I shed some light on how its weight, port-
ability and intuitive interface take on significance with
young children. In developing a descriptive framework
for understanding the data, I draw freely from the liter-
ature on gesture, touch and pointing (e.g. Clark, 2003;
Kendon, 2004; McNeill, 2000) as well as some of the
work on haptics (Minogue & Jones, 2006).
Observing young children with iPads
A preliminary viewing of the video data highlighted
the significant work done by the body and hands when
sharing and using iPads. Although some of this is
similar to what can be gleaned from observations of
sharing print books (e.g. Flewitt, Nind & Payler, 2009),
there are also some important differences. These differ-
ences have their origin in two key characteristics of the
iPad. The first concerns material affordance – particu-
larly the size, weight and rigidity of the tablet device;
and the second derives from the specific operative
 Keep taking the tablets: iPads, story apps and early literacy • MERCHANT
functions  – most notably the haptic interface realised
through touch screen technology. These characteristics
establish important differences in the ways in which
meanings are made, how the stories themselves are
experienced, how readers navigate a route through the
text  – and, of course, by implication and extension,
how texts are then shared.
A simple framework was designed to identify the
work of the body and hands based on the different
functions they perform. This distinguishes between
(1) stabilising movements which are responses to the
weight and shape of the iPad  – these movements are
needed to hold the device steady so that users can see
sufficient detail on the screen and then work at the
interface; (2) control movements which are essential
for basic operations, accessing apps, and navigating
texts on-screen; (3) deictic movements that are used
to draw attention to the screen or to point out specific
features. As we shall see, sometimes it is quite difficult
to make clear-cut distinctions between these categories,
and in fact it appears that on occasions a simple deictic
finger-pointing gesture becomes a control movement (a
tap) midway through its execution. More detail, with
examples from the data, is given in Table 1. It should
be noted at this point that although there are many
other possible movements (common iPad gestures such
as pinching and enlarging) these are not referred to here
because they were not present in the data.
Observations of these kinds of movement were
Table 1. A provisional functional typology of hand
movements used with the iPad.
1. Stablilising movements
Holding – using one or both hands to support the tablet
as one might hold a tray (Figure 2)
Holding and resting – as above but using the knees for
additional support (Figure 4)
2. Control movements
General tapping – using three or four fingers in a slapping
motion (Figure 4)
Precision tapping – using the forefinger (like the pointing
gesture) or with the hand palm downwards slightly
lowering one of the first three fingers so that it activates
the screen (Figure 1)
Swiping – hand palm downward using one or more
fingers to drag across the screen (Figure 4)
Thumb pressing – using the thumb to tap, swipe or
operate the home button (Episode 1)
3. Deictic movements
Pointing, nodding and other gestures – directing
attention to the screen or visual items framed by the
screen (Episodes 1 & 2)
Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2015 5
applied to descriptive notes on the visual data and then
set alongside the verbal elements (adult-child talk as
well as voices, songs and sounds generated by the iPad
app). These verbal elements were labelled as ‘speech’
for convenience. Notes were also kept on the main
constituents of each interaction which are referred to
as ‘agents’. This term is used to include interactions that
are prompted by the app, by the adult and by the chil-
dren. Extracts from this framework are shown below
in each of the two episodes.
Before focusing on the two selected episodes, some
general comments on the immediate environment of
the two research settings. In both cases the iPads were
used in a relatively secluded area and introduced by
adult staff who were employed in the setting and there-
fore familiar to the children. The adults had already
had the opportunity to explore a range of stories on
the iPads, were familiar with navigation, and had some
informal opportunities to discuss their use. However,
their level of experience was varied and it could not be
claimed that they had in anyway been trained in using
interactive stories. They brought the knowledge and
experience that they already had in using stories and
print texts, and more generally in working with young
children.
Figure 1. Touching as control.
The iPads were introduced into each setting as a new
item. As a result we need to be careful to account for the
novelty value of the devices; there is often ‘the allure of
the new and “shiny”’ (Davies & Merchant, 2013) and
this was certainly the case here. Furthermore, the pres-
ence of researchers with video cameras may well have
suggested to the children that something ‘special’ was
occurring. In any event the technology quickly became
the focus of attention, as the image in Figure 1 suggests.
Children arranged themselves around the iPad and, like
the adult their gaze was almost immediately drawn to
MERCHANT • Keep taking the tablets: iPads, story apps and early literacy

Table 2. iPad app-sharing.

Time Speech Movement Actants

Hannah is sitting on the floor and Iona is on

Snort, snort! The Three Little Pigs her knee. Hannah’s arms are encircling her and H and I with
00:03 holding the iPad with both hands so they can iPad
both see the screen (stablilising movement).
00:06
H:‘You can read it’ Hannah points to the ‘Read it to me’ icon, and
touches Iona’s hand. Hannah taps the screen with H and I with
Once upon a time there were three her index finger. iPad app
little pigs …
(diectic → control movement)

the screen. In the introductory sequence that this image
is taken from, the idea that direct physical contact with
the screen would make something happen seemed
common to all the children who repeatedly tapped and
slapped the screen in a frenzy of haptic engagement –
imitating, perhaps, the actions of the adult. Even at
this very early stage it appeared that the concept of
‘touching as control’ was understood, although, as we
shall see, it was not at all clear what sort of touch might
be needed to trigger a particular on-screen event.
Episode one: Iona and Kenny
with Hannah
In this first episode the adult (Hannah) is sharing the
story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ with Iona (Figure 2).
This story-app is distributed by a UK-based children’s
publishing company Nosy Crow, who specialise in
book and app design and has been well-received by
educators. Iona is 14 months old, and throughout the
episode is sitting on Hannah’s lap. Hannah is sitting on
the floor, resting against a wall in the book area (Figure
2). Kenny, who is 18 months, is also around at the time,
and makes his presence known at several points during
the episode.
In some ways this is a familiar story-sharing scene in
which the adult and child are in close proximity. Iona
is cradled in Hannah’s arms. Hannah leans forward
slightly, perhaps to adjust to the infant’s gaze. They are
both focused on the screen of the iPad which Hannah
holds in both hands. If just shown the top half of Figure
2, one could easily imagine that they were looking at
a book. Hannah has been showing Iona how to turn
pages on screen, and Iona’s index figure appears to be
poised in readiness. Hannah has demonstrated this by
both pointing (deictic) and control movements.
What happens on screen, how Hannah addresses
Iona, and the movements she makes are woven together
in the interaction. After the book title is announced by
the app, a screen that provides options appears (‘Read it
yourself’ and ‘Read it to me’). When Hannah explains
this, her pointing gesture is an integral part of the ‘You
can read it’ utterance. Her hand in prone position with
index finger extended is synchronised with the word
‘read’ (see Kendon, 2004). Then she withdraws her
hand towards her body, gently touching Iona’s hand
in passing, as if transmitting a haptic learning point
(Minogue & Jones, 2006). Hannah extends her hand
once again, and with the same gesture taps the screen
to start the story. As can be seen in Table 2, this all
happens very quickly, but it serves to illustrate a basic
pedagogical move in which gesture plays a key role.
Hannah demonstrates how to make the iPad story-app
work.
Figure 2. Pointing gesture as imitation and preparation.
As the story begins, with the familiar opening ‘Once
upon a time there were three little pigs’, it attracts
the attention of Kenny, who soon makes his presence
known. While Iona is happy to passively observe,
holding the index finger of her right hand at the ready
(Figure 2), Kenny is keen to exert control. It is hard to
tell whether he is pointing or tapping, but it does seem
that he is more interested in doing that than listening
to the story. In what follows, Kenny steals the scene,
successfully capturing Hannah’s attention and her
approval for his attempts to control the app (Table 3).
Why he looks underneath the device is unclear – simi-
larly one can only guess why Iona looks up at Hannah,

6 Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2015

 Keep taking the tablets: iPads, story apps and early literacy • MERCHANT

Table 3. Kenny and the iPad

T- code Speech Movement Actants

00:21 H: ‘Do you want to look at …?’

All look towards the screen. H to K
H: ‘The three little pigs.’
00:25
It was time to leave their home … Kenny places his index finger on the screen – Ipad app
he could be either pointing or touching
H, I, and K
00:30 H: ‘One little pig.’ (deictic/control movement).

The first little pig …

Kenny repeats the finger movement K and iPad app
H: ‘Good boy!’
00:34 (deictic/control movement).
H: ‘You press just there look.’ Hannah points at the screen (deictic H to K
movement).

00:44 The first little pig decided to make a

Kenny bends down to look underneath the IPad app
house …
iPad. K and iPad
H: ‘Watch this little pig.’ Iona looks up at Hannah. Their faces are only I and K
00:47 about 6 inches apart.

Kenny grabs Hannah’s hand to prevent any K, H and iPad

movement, and taps the screen with his index app
finger (deictic/control movement).
00:58
Kenny holds up his finger, with pride. K

although it is tempting to think that she is working to mischievously. At the same time he levers himself up
re-establish the intimacy of one-to-one story-sharing. into a standing position with one hand pressing down
Following this, Kenny crawls behind Hannah moving on Hannah’s forearm and the other on the book trolley.
away to kneel by the nearby book trolley. As Iona and
Hannah continue with the story, he struggles to hold a
board book, it slips from his grip and turns upside down
in his hands. He then tries to open it before it slides
through his hands and drops to the floor. Hannah and
Iona continue to look at the iPad, listening to the story.
With careful support from Hannah, Iona gradually
builds the confidence to turn pages herself. Only some
of her efforts meet with success. In Figure 4 we can
see Iona practising her page-turning while Kenny looks
somewhat dejected. Meanwhile, though, he maintains
contact with Hannah by applying firm pressure with
his right shoe, as if to ensure that she doesn’t forget he
is still there. Perhaps as a result of this, Hannah looks
across at Kenny to re-engage his attention. It seems to
work and Iona shifts to the right as Kenny approaches
from the other side. Although Hannah tries to keep the Figure 3. Handing over control.
narrative going with Iona there is now competition for In this episode a number of themes come to the fore.
her attention. As Kenny kneels down he extends his These include both continuities and discontinuities with
forefinger as if to tap the screen, and Hannah angles the traditional story-sharing. First of all, the positioning
iPad in his direction. Kenny changes his gesture at the of both adult and children are reminiscent of book-
last minute so that when his hand makes contact with sharing behaviour. The physical proximity of Hannah
the iPad the thumb comes to rest on the home button, and Iona and the way the device is held in both hands
which he presses decisively. The story comes to an at a comfortable distance by the adult is almost iden-
abrupt end and Kenny looks up at the camera grinning tical to book-sharing. Even Kenny’s attempts to join

Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2015 7

MERCHANT • Keep taking the tablets: iPads, story apps and early literacy

Table 4. Donna’s repertoire

T- code Speech Movement Actants

Donna sits up as the screen displays ‘Peppa Pig’ D, iPad app

00:07 H: ‘Where’s that Peppa?’ with familiar artwork and signature colours. H
Donna extends both hands towards the iPad. She
00:09 D, iPad
♪♪ Peppa Pig, Peppa Pig! ♪♪ steadies it with her right hand and moves to grasp
00:11 it with her left (stablilising movement).
00:15
Hannah waves at the Peppa Pig character as it H, iPad app
♪♪ Peppa Pig, Peppa Pig! Snort!
appears on the screen (deictic movement).
Snort! ♪♪
Donna moves her hands away and points at Peppa D, iPad app
D: ‘Yep’ who is now scurrying across the screen (deictic D, H
movement).
♪♪ Peppa Pig, Peppa Pig! ♪♪ iPad app
H: ‘… <inaudible> …’
Hannah speaks to Donna. H
Donna bounces on the cushion and performs a D
H: ‘uh – ho!’ swipe on the screen using all the fingers of her H, iPad app
right hand. The iPad returns to its front page
(control movement). Donna then holds up her D, H
index finger in a pointing gesture and looks up at
Hannah with a questioning look, mouth slightly D, H
open (deictic movement?).
H: ‘You press play.’ Hannah points at a purple rectangle on the lower H
screen that says ‘play’ (deictic movement?). iPad app
H

in, take over or disrupt (depending, of course, on one’s
interpretation) are often seen in informal story work in
these sorts of settings. As mentioned above, Hannah
makes some simple pedagogical moves – moves that are
analogous to traditional print practices. For instance,
she directs attention to the text, she encourages page-
turning, albeit on-screen, and she gives feedback. But
these moves are subtly different and they are apparently
new to both Iona and Kenny. They depend on quite
specific movements on the flat surface of the iPad, and
there is very slender margin of error. A particular kind
of kinaesthetic control is needed, and it is different from
that required when turning the pages of a print book.
Kenny’s behaviour deserves some comment, too  –
and certainly a lot could be made of the way in which
he appears to intrude. His engagement with the iPad
seems to be more anchored to its materiality than to
the story it mediates. Is it an accident that he imme-
diately makes control movements, moving away when
successful, only to return to prematurely end the story?
Finally, the sharing event itself has a lot in common
with listening to a talking book. In the ‘read it to me’
function that Hannah is using, her role is reduced. She
does not have to read aloud, merely to be an experi-
enced co-listener. This leaves her free to make passing
comments, to point to features of the screen, and so on.
Episode two: Donna with Hannah
In the second episode Hannah is working with Donna
(22 months), looking at Peppa Pig’s Party, which
includes a story and interactive activities, and is
produced by P2 Games, a UK-based publisher of inter-
active apps. This app has clear links to popular culture
and was a firm favourite of children in the study. The
episode begins with both adult and child sitting next
to each other on floor cushions. The iPad is displaying
the home screen, and Donna is looking at it atten-
tively. Initially it is balanced on Hannah’s right thigh
resting against Donna’s left leg, being partly wedged
against her small shoe. Hannah holds the iPad with
her left hand (a stabilising movement), her right is in a
prone position with fingers splayed. The index finger is
slightly lowered as it makes contact with the screen in
a familiar control movement.
As the app’s opening screen appears, Donna joins her
hands together, smiles in satisfaction at what she sees,
whilst at the same time rotating her feet towards one other
so they just touch. This all seems to signal her excitement.
In turn, Hannah slides towards Donna, letting go of the
iPad with her right hand so that her arm can encircle her
in a more intimate story-sharing pose. This leads into
the sequence of interactions shown in Table 4 in which
Donna attempts a number of control movements.

8 Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2015

 Keep taking the tablets: iPads, story apps and early literacy • MERCHANT
Figure 4. Unconventional swipe.
As the episode unfolds, we see Donna’s index finger
hovering above the screen. She then lifts it high, in an
exaggerated move, before accurately tapping the appro-
priate start-icon (a control movement). The iPad screen
then shows the ‘My Party’ screen and Donna uses her
index finger to drag icons from the top of the display
as Hannah tilts the iPad towards her. The challenge
is to select an item and drag it to the correct place on
the screen. Hannah indicates how this is done with the
comment ‘Press the big button’, followed by ‘Put them
in there’ as she points to the screen (a deictic move-
ment). Donna uses her index finger pressed against
the screen to drag the icon, to the place that she has
been shown. At first it detaches from the display bar
but fails to ‘stick’ and bounces back. At a second
attempt, Donna is able to drag her icon into position,
thus demonstrating a successful control movement. By
now it seems that Donna is confident enough to work
independently, and she assertively grips the edge of the
iPad with both hands and drags it on to her own knee,
wresting it from Hannah’s control (Figure 5). There is
a brief tug-of-war with the device, but Hannah yields
to Donna who soon has the iPad balanced on her
outstretched legs as she continues to navigate her way
around the screen. Hannah is at hand in case there’s
any need for adult help; but there isn’t.
In contrast to Iona, who featured in the previous
episode, Donna is far more active in her engagement.
She is also more accurate in her taps and swipes than
Kenny (admittedly, she is a little older than both of
them). But beyond all this, there is a confidence with
the iPad and a desire for independence. Once she has
honed her control movements and perfected the drag-
and-drop move, she wants to hold the iPad herself, and
before long balances it on her outstretched legs whilst
continuing to navigate the screen. It is important to add
here that Donna has some previous experience  – she
Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2015 9
Figure 5. Contesting control.
plays on her father’s iPad at home, and this seems to
provide a convincing account of the confidence she so
clearly displays.
Hannah allows Donna to take the lead here, and
her support is ‘just in time’ and at the point of need
as Donna is helped in her attempts to perform quite
a sophisticated drag-and-drop move. Hannah, like a
good teacher, allows for some failed attempts before
making her interventions, and these serve to foster
Donna’s further independence with the device.
Discussion
Considered together, these two episodes raise some
important issues for educators and researchers inter-
ested in how iPads and similar devices can play a part
in early childhood literacy. A recent study commis-
sioned by the US Department of Education noted that
‘little research has been done on young children’s usage
of touch screen devices’ and their potential for use as
an educational tool (Cohen, Hadley & Frank, 2010,
p. 1). Empirical work is certainly needed if we are to
deepen our understanding of how children explore
touch screens, how adults can support them, and how
app design can be sensitive to this. The data shown
here depict both children and adults in the early stages
of exploration, and focuses attention on the materi-
ality of the iPad, as well as the kinaesthetic and haptic
skills that are necessary to access meaning in story and
game apps. In these interactions, young children seem
interested in the touch screens and keen to discover
important control movements, whereas adult workers,
already skilled in following their lead in learning
contexts, support their initial explorations both sensi-
tively and appropriately.
Cohen et al. (2010, p. 2) describe children’s ‘fascina-
tion’ with the technology; I would be more cautious.
The children in this study were certainly attracted by
MERCHANT • Keep taking the tablets: iPads, story apps and early literacy
the iPads, but it is important to acknowledge that the
allure of the new could equally be applied to many
other toys, devices and challenges introduced into
early years settings. Adult enthusiasm about touch
screen devices often centres on the way in which they
place sophisticated media in the hands of users and
the weight and portability of iPads are part of their
attraction and appeal to early years educators (Burden
et al., 2014; Pegrum et al., 2013). The data in this study
show how young children can easily handle iPads, but
that this does demand a certain kind of dexterity. In
episode one, Kenny fumbles with a board book and it
eventually falls to the floor. Fortunately this episode
is not repeated with the iPad! In contrast, Donna,
who is more at home with the device, is able to grab
it from the adult, but still manages to rest it carefully
on her outstretched legs. In these episodes we can only
speculate on the possibility that the iPad (or, for that
matter, the book) might draw on the cultural capital of
some children and not others. However, both episodes
do show how the size and shape of the iPad compare
favourably with a story book, and that its weight and
portability mean that it can be handled by children as
young as 22 months.
The so-called ‘intuitive’ nature of the touch screen is
a more problematic area. Partly this is because of the
ambiguity of the description itself – rather like the word
‘interactive’ it is a term commonly applied to digital
environments without any clear definition. Nonetheless
it certainly is the case that compared to mouse control,
the haptic interface removes a significant obstacle, and
the hand, or finger, operates directly on the screen.
This is an obvious advantage over older interfaces.
However, both episodes show that young children
need to discover precisely how the weight, positioning,
and stability or movement of fingers must be used to
navigate apps successfully. In the data presented here
it was often hard to distinguish between iPad opera-
tion and app navigation  – partly because one cannot
guess children’s intention. For example, Kenny’s initial
taps appear to be navigation moves, but his pressing of
the home button is more about device operation. Were
both actions simply exploratory? In the absence of any
other indicators, both actions were coded as control
movements.
Cohen et al. (2010, p. 10) make an important distinc-
tion between platform and app, concluding that, at this
point in time, ‘there are few examples of well-designed
educational apps for young children’. There seem to be
some indications in this data that the apps used were
often unresponsive or required a level of touch precision
that frustrated young children (hence the frequency of
repeated tapping). More work in this area is clearly
10 Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2015
needed and there may be mutual gains in future collabo-
rations between app designers, educational researchers
and practitioners. It should be concluded that iPads,
and apps specifically aimed at the young, are not quite
as intuitive as we might at first think.
When story apps are considered, a number of issues
seem to surface from this initial reading of the data.
Firstly, although there are some clear similarities
between book- and iPad-sharing, as witnessed by the
comments about physical proximity in episode one,
there are some distinct differences, too. These derive
from the reading paths presented, the haptics associ-
ated with navigation and the ways in which these two
features interact. Secondly, there are questions about
the adult’s role in story-app sharing. In both episodes
Hannah provides regular prompts for control move-
ments, and in fact these outnumber her comments and
questions on story content and language features. This
might simply be a result of the novelty of the iPad and
the apps themselves, or it could be that the multimedia
story format, particularly when the app is played in
‘read it to me’ mode, reduces the role of the adult who is,
as a result, reframed as a provider of technical support.
And finally, there is the vexed question of the quality of
story apps, both from the point of view of their design
and their content. In the wider study we noticed that
some apps demanded more in terms of touch and inter-
action than others – for example, The Three Little Pigs
requires some blowing into the built-in microphone and
The Heart and the Bottle involves shaking the device.
Some apps also need more precision in touch. These are
both unexplored design issues. But also the question
of what constitutes a ‘good’ story arises, and how and
when we recognise popular culture. Peppa Pig’s Party
Time established immediate links with children’s out
of school media lives, attracted interest, and provoked
discussion whereas other apps seemed to require more
scaffolding. This is rich terrain for further research.
In conclusion, this preliminary work suggests some
important areas for future consideration by app
designers, educators and researchers. The simplistic
view that the iPad’s weight, portability and intuitive
touch-screen interface make it ideally suited to the early
years has been challenged in this paper  – there is a
pressing need for a more nuanced view. I have suggested
that empirical work that focuses on materiality has an
important contribution to make. It has, for example,
been argued that:
materiality is indicative of both the embodied and
embedded nature of human experience, the multiple
entanglements of humans with materials objects and arte-
facts, and the various supports these provide to human
pursuits. (Kallinikos, Leonardi & Nardi, 2012, p. 7).
 Keep taking the tablets: iPads, story apps and early literacy • MERCHANT
iPads, and the apps that run on them, can in this
sense be consider as artefacts that support learning and
literacy. The human actors in this ‘pursuit’ are some-
times quite literally ‘entangled’ with these artefacts: in
the two episodes I have analysed, adults and children
compete to hold and operate the iPads. Whilst this
sort of focus can be fruitful, it could be the case that
the sort of detailed micro-analysis that this perspec-
tive invites encourages us to turn aside from the wider
socio-cultural concerns that address distribution, use
and engagement with new technology. To the contrary,
from the little that we have seen here, it does seem that
the close study of iPad use ‘in situ’ has the potential
to reveal how power relations and uneven distribu-
tion of capital are instantiated in everyday encounters.
Although it would be dangerous to read too much into
the part that Kenny plays in episode one, it does seem
that he enacts a different sort of relationship with both
Hannah and the device than either Iona or Donna do.
Could this be interpreted as gendered behaviour, and if
so, how widespread is it? More close analysis would be
needed to press the case. Turning to the second episode,
I drew attention to the ways in which it seems that
Donna’s prior experience might account for her confi-
dent and independent enjoyment of the iPad app. Could
this be an example of how cultural capital (home iPad
ownership) might play out in educational settings? It is
too early to reach any conclusions here, but it certainly
does seem crucial to be alert to these sorts of issues, if
only because the ‘the allure of the new and “shiny”’
(Davies & Merchant, 2013) could blind us to more
fundamental social and educational issues.
Acknowledgement
I am indebted to my co-researchers: Julia Bishop, Karen
Daniels, Jackie Marsh, Jools Page and Dylan Yamada-
Rice for this work which was funded by the Collabora-
tion Sheffield initiative.
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