I don’t advocate more screen time for children, but if they’re going to be on, making it as educational and as useful as possible is a good goal.” He feels the current era is “very analogous to early days of television,” when, without much evidence, observers took sides on whether TV was “good or evil.” One study found that three-quarters of low-income minority children now have their own mobile device by age 4.Īrnold adds, “Every single one of our families had mobile devices, and even very young children are on phones and tablets a lot.

But now everyone has access,” he notes, even in the poorest communities.

Such apps could provide “an important and practical tool for fostering academic success in at-risk children.”Īrnold says, “Historically, the lack of equal access to technology had blocked low- income kids from having a chance at using educational software, because they had less access to computers and the Internet. “This finding suggests that high-quality educational apps could be an important tool in reducing the SES achievement gap, which is especially exciting given that the app is free, that mobile technology is available to almost all children in this country, and that children enjoy using the app,” they add. – As millions of families struggle to keep their children learning while schools are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, preliminary results of a randomized, controlled study led by psychology researcher David Arnold at the University of Massachusetts Amherst show that 4- and 5-year-olds from low income families who used a Khan Academy Kids App for three months at home achieved “substantial gains in their pre-literacy skills that brought them nearly to the national average.”

Khan academy kindergarten reading