Paper books or e-books? Children need both

Natalia Kucirkova, Professor of Children's Reading and Development, The Open University When faced with the question of whether children should read on screen or on paper, many adults turn to traditional paper books. Yet when we ask children, we see that e-books motivate children to read, especially those who don’t enjoy traditional paper reading (Picton, 2014). For children who are developing their reader identities and acquiring reading skills, e-books have several practical assets that position them ahead of print books. Advantages of e-books E-books are low-cost to produce and thus cheaper to buy or easier to get for free (Baron, 2021). E-books are readily available on devices that low-income families already have in their hands, and can be read both online and offline (e.g. https://storyweaver.org.in/offline/read) . E-books can be easily shared when physical contact is not possible, as we saw during the pandemic, but as also often happens during illness, war conflict or displ