Our lives are surrounded by technology. Between phones, tablets, laptops, and TVs, we may be staring at screens from the moment we wake up until the moment we sleep. We are more connected than ever before – and for Raising A Reader, that can be great for communicating with parents – but when it comes to teaching young children, how much screen time is appropriate?

Recently, we have seen various articles in the news about this very conundrum. A few months ago, the New York Times published this article questioning “Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Screen Time?” A few weeks ago, another article showed up in the Op-Ed questioning “Can Students Have Too Much Tech?”

Education Week has an answer to these questions with this article, highlighting the harm of e-reading before sleep. Additionally, there are now studies showing that reading on kindles and other e-readers is still not quite the same as reading on paper.

This past weekend, we found a new article on the web encouraging parents to use the same dialogic reading methods we teach, but with digital apps. In the article, she says, “We have the information at our fingertips; what is really crucial is how we use that information. Now it is raising a reader who is able to ask questions and think about why the world works the way it does and what that might mean for a kid as a learner living in that same world.

Zero to Three has recently published these research-based guidelines for using screens with children under 3.

What do you think? How should parents help their young children navigate through this digital world?