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Is There an Upside to Screen Time?

May 25, 2023

As a mother of four young children who are drawn to the iPad like moths to a flame, it’s a little hard for me to write a blog post about the upside of screen time. Mostly I see the iPad as a frequent source of conflict in my house. My kids want to play games or watch shows on it, and I want them to do things I’ve deemed more meaningful—read books, play outside, build with Legos, or, dare I even dream it, pick up their room. Indeed, plenty of research confirms the negative consequences of too much screen time, which is why so many parents find themselves fighting this battle with their children day after day.


So where is the upside? When kids use One Minute Reader on a computer or tablet, they have audio support for unknown words, plenty of content at a level that will challenge but not frustrate them, a motivating system for tracking progress, a game-like interface to keep them engaged, and more. This system makes reading enjoyable while offering kids the support they need to improve quickly. Furthermore, the “moth to the flame” phenomenon works in everyone’s favor. Students are so drawn to the program on the screen, they are more motivated than ever to work on fluency. If this is the end result, and a screen can help achieve it with increased efficiency, I’d call that an upside for sure.


If screens (in moderation!) are a part of your children’s lives, consider a well-developed, tried-and-true educational program like One Minute Reader. The whole program, with dozens of high-interest stories, is just a click away for $8/month. If your kids are game lovers, you might also want to check out the fun, vocabulary-boosting Splat-o-Nym app for the iPad.


As summer approaches, we hope your screen time battles are minimal and that One Minute Reader is a solution everyone can agree on.

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"Fluency is not an instructional target. It is the result of decoding instruction that leads to automatic word recognition." "If a child can decode accurately and automatically, they do not need fluency practice." "Fluency is an outcome of good decoding not a process to go through." "Fluency is a byproduct of solid word recognition skills and not its own distinct subskill." Have you ever heard someone say that reading fluency is just a natural byproduct of learning phonics? This idea has been a point of conversation lately in many literacy spaces, and surprisingly, it's not sparking much debate. Is reading fluency just a natural byproduct of decoding development? If only it were that simple! Fluency is one of the five essential components of reading because it’s a distinct part of skilled reading. Of course, the five components don’t exist in separate vacuums; they overlap and influence each other. Naturally, this can cause some confusion. Let’s discuss the relationship between phonics , fluency , and comprehension . There’s no doubt that automatic word recognition is a key reason why text fluency is so highly correlated with comprehension. When children can automatically read words, their cognitive load is freed up for meaning-making. Children must first develop their decoding skills in order to eventually become automatic decoders. But is an automatic decoder the same as a fluent reader? Consider this reading sample:
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