PowerPoint for Young Learners
Technology is being used with increasing frequency in early childhood education to develop children's knowledge and skills. Multimedia applications and presentation tools, in particular, are increasing in popularity and providing powerful tools for creation of learning materials and accessible information in several formats. When used appropriately in early childhood education, these software can support and extend traditional classrooms in valuable ways (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1996).
MS PowerPoint, as a multimedia authoring and presentation tool, has become the dominant presentation tool in early childhood settings because it is both readily available and easy-to-use by teachers (Grabe & Grabe 2007). PowerPoint allows teachers to create and manipulate presentations in a wide variety of contexts that can enhance children's interest and engagement (Mills & Roblyer 2006). It helps teachers clearly identify the main points of a lesson or activity while still providing the details through presentation (Loisel & Galer, 2004). In addition, teachers can incorporate multiple types of media formats (e.g., clipart, photo, drawing, sound and video) that cannot be easily integrated together into one single medium.
Young learners are also attracted to PowerPoint because of graphical, transactional, aesthetic and interactive features it provides. Chiasson & Gutwin (2005) believe that children's goals while learn with computers are typically education or entertainment rather than productivity. In order to be successful, a presentation needs to keep their interest and attention. In a series of studies on using Microsoft PowerPoint to support the development of learners in early childhood education, Parette and his colleagues tell us that well-designed and teacher-guided PowerPoint presentations help young children, particularly those at risk for reading difficulties, to build confidence, and to work and feel comfortable with the lesson format the teacher has designed for them (Parette, Blum, Boeckmann & Watts, 2009; Parette, Quesenberry & Blum, 2010).
In classroom settings, Parette and his colleagues at Illinois State University conducted a series of studies focused on the use of PowerPoint in teaching emergent literacy skills for young children. They concluded that the availability of digital projectors greatly enhances the group teaching potential of PowerPoint presentations and engages children in various learning activities that contribute to the development of their vocabulary, phonological awareness and comprehension of alphabetic and print principles (Parette, Wojcik, Stoner & Watts, 2007; Parette, Hourcade, Boeckmann & Blum, 2008). For example, the teacher might use the animation features to make slides more engaging for children and control the appearance of each letter in a word so that it is isolated, and can be linked with the sound that corresponds to it. In addition, a single letter could appear on the slide, followed by the sequential appearance of other letters, until an entire word is created, illustrating left-to-right sequencing in the construction of words and the reading process (Parette, Blum & Watts, 2009).
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