Introducing touch-based technologies to low-income early childhood students
This article was about introducing touch-based instructional technologies in an early childhood education classroom. It brings up the point about using technology as part of the educational experience for low-income preschool children who are at risk for failure due to poverty (McManis & McManis, 2016). By using instructional technology at such a young age, teachers are finding that it can bridge the gap between where the children are when they start school in relation to where they should be academically when starting school. Touch-based technologies are more easily operated by younger children as opposed to the older desktops and laptops previously used. There are decades of researching showing the positive outcomes in literacy and math using desktops that had a mouse connected to it, but limited knowledge of how touch-screen based devices such as an iPad can reflect a positive outcome on math and literacy skills. Some studies have found that low-income students did im