While looking into this topic, I also got into a conversation with my mother on how I learned to read as a little girl. She pulled out this artifact from our basement that she kept for 20 years (and probably will until I might have kids some day).
It is a battery-powered computer that you can carry around. It is fully plastic and kind of heavy for a smaller child. Once you open it up, there is a small screen and you are greeted by some happy, colorful illustrations. You are able to learn numbers and letters with it.
It has different modes. For example: Learning letters (Sounds), Finding letters (Shape recognition), Learn the ABC, Recognizing starting letter sounds, Numbers etc.
On the keyboard you see the letters with small illustrations next to them and a whole word with the beginning letter underneath.
Unfortunately it does not work anymore, but it actually follows very similar learning steps to the ones I researched last semester.
You can start with Setting 1: Learning the letter. For that you click the buttons and a friendly voice sounds it out over the speakers. “A wie Affe”, “B wie Bus” etc. The pictures help with connecting the letter to an object or animal (like the logographic phase”).
Setting 2: Finding letters. On the screen a letter shows up and you have to press the according button. This furthers letter recognition and learning the shapes.
These different learning stages build up one after another. In my case, once I got the basic letters down (and my mother had to listen to all the letters about a billion times), I started asking how certain words are written. So while my mum was cooking dinner I kept asking for new words to type out.
“Mum, how do you write BALL?”
“B wie Bus, A wie Affe, L wie Lampe und nochmal L wie Lampe”
Interactive and digital equipment like this can keep kids entertained and motivated through its playful character. Of course, since then technology has vastly advanced and there is many more opportunities, but I will keep this approach in the back of my head.
