Mary Ann Scheuer is a school librarian, mom to three, grad student and blogger. Each day she spreads a love of reading with 300 elementary students in Berkeley, CA at Emerson Elementary School, a diverse and thriving public school. Each night she divides her time between blogging at Great Kid Books and pursuing her Masters in Library and Information Sciences at San Jose State University.

Mary Ann has been reviewing children’s book apps on her blog since January 2011, and has been fascinated with the way this field is developing.  We caught up with her to find out her experiences with digital storytelling in the schools.

What signs have you seen of digital storytelling in schools to date?

One of my brothers had a really hard time learning to read.  He was dyslexic and he had some learning issues. For him, being read to and books on tape were a huge benefit.  He didn’t like books but he loved listening to stories. For a child like that, being able to see and hear a story at the same time gives them so much access into the magic of story-telling.

I don’t see digital books replacing print books for children.  Children need to read so much volume that families aren’t able to buy everything children need.  I also don’t see libraries as providing everything digitally for young children but I do see a wonderful companionship that goes hand in hand between the print and digital experience.  If you love reading something in print, you’ll love discovering all that is has offer digitally and vice versa.

How do you get that point across to parents?

The problem is that children are drawn to games so much more than reading.  A teacher at my daughter’s school said the same thing – her four year old has a few stories on the iPad but Angry Birds or a book?  It’s a really hard thing.  So how does the family negotiate seeing the iPad as a tool for literacy development and exploring books?  In my own family, we set boundaries.  We have game time, and we have reading time.

Spot the Dot  is interesting because it’s a game but it also draws on picture book sensibility.  It’s a very interesting hybrid.

Spot the Dot

How do you evaluate apps?  What do you look for?

This stemmed out of a presentation I put together with Paula Wiley and Betsy Bird for the KidLitosphere  conference a few weeks ago.  We were trying to get at what were some of the real essential elements are to look for in an app.  The other purpose of the presentation was to expose a group of people who love and are dedicated to children’s literature to how this new media draws on a lot of what they knew already yet has a lot of different elements.  Some real key questions that stood out for me were:

• How well does the art integrate the text that carries into a picture book app?  It’s important to look at how the app chunks and divides up the artwork and picture book experience into a manageable experience for a child.  For example, in the Skippyjon Jones app, some of the pages only have two lines of text.   Other pages have a whole paragraph of text.   For an early reader, it can be difficult to have that much text on one page, especially on a tablet which is a little smaller than a large picture book.  Other apps take a traditional picture book page and break text into smaller chunks and then pan into parts of the art that’s going with different chunks.  I think it’s interesting for developers to look at how they approach dividing up that information and experience for a child in a way that doesn’t overload their intake.  In smaller chunks, children can look, think and pause.  Picture books and apps both carefully use the page turn.  Where can a reader think and pause before turning the page?  I love that with apps. You pause and think before you consciously turn the page.

• Does the app include interactivity that engages the reader? Some apps are successful at having activities that keep your child engaged in the story, but some have activities that pull your child away from the story. Either they’re too involved or are not essential to keeping your child on track of the story.  Teddy’s Day has a really hard puzzle.  Some of the interactive features are great.  Other parts take a long time to figure out, and by the time I’ve figured it out, I’ve forgotten what the story’s all about. This is more confusing for a child aged 4 or 5!  My attention span doesn’t even go that long.  The interactive features need to add the wow factor, buzz, engagement and yet not take you off the track of the story.  It’s a very delicate balance.  I loved the Spot the Dot  app for the way David Carter created it with a new puzzle each time – same format, predicability, but enough of a wow factor to keep a child engaged.

• How much of a factor is price?  When you’re getting up towards $7 for an app and you’re wondering how many times will my kids be reading this, it’s a factor.  In a marketplace where games are priced so low, it’s really hard.  And I wonder if that’s a factor for other families.  For me, I have such a dedication to children’s books that I don’t have a problem spending money on an app my child will read three, four or five times.  You compare that to going to a movie with the family, it’s a bargain.  But I think that price point is a factor for most families.

What are some of your favorite apps for kids?  

For younger kids: Spot the Dot; How Rocket Learned to Read (chunked in a nice way);  the multi-lingual options on Red Apple, Scruffy Kitty and The Birthday.

I really love some of the non-fiction apps like Magic School Bus Ocean - try that with your 8 year-old.  The way you are able to embed non-fiction elements with more fiction is impressive.  If you think about reading development, so much of the reading in middle and high school is non-fiction, so all the ways we can get kids to experience non-fiction is so important.  And little kids love non-fiction.  Imagine taking a basic picture book about trains and embed pictures of real trains into an app.  That’s a little boy’s dream.

Some good apps for older kids are Gems and Jewels and Journey into the Deep.  For middle school readers, there’s Nancy Drew Shadow Ranch with “change the ending” which kids adore, as well as simple games.

Definitely check out Great Kid Books for more great tips and articles from Mary Ann.