Digital reading in the early years: expertise, engagement and learning

Children are compulsive meaning-makers (Kress 2013). They construct their own personal theories about natural phenomena as well as about the cultural context of their experience, seeing "the world of objects as fully meaningful" (Kress 1997: 142). Computers, tablets or smartphones are clear instances of the world cif obJects with which children ubiquitously interact and make meanings long before entering school (Rowsell et al. 2013). This chapter looks into digital meaning-making practices, with the aim of contributing to the understanding of digital reading in the early years.This work is funded by CIEd- Research Centre on Education, projects UID/CED/1661/2013 and UID/CED/1661/2016, Institute of Education, University of Minho, through national funds of FCT /MCTES-PT and also by CIEC (Center for Research in Child Studies at the University of Minho), project UID/CED/00317/2019