The big question is what else is going on besides screen time? My wife was a kindergarten teacher for 34 years and I taught 1st and 2nd grade for many years. We were entrusted with the task of teaching kids to read. If kids are read to an hour a day or more, they are often reading when they reach kindergarten. How? If you have been around kids and books, you know they have their favorites. When these favorites are read repeatedly, kids learn the story by heart. Next they turn the pages and retell the story, then they start to put together the one-on-one correspondence to the words on the page, next they recognize those words in other context, enough books repeatedly read in and they are reading by 5 or 6. Kids who arrive at school without this foundation in books are at a big disadvantage. Reading can be broken down into two main parts. 1) Building the story in the reader’s mind and 2) decoding the words on the page. Reading aloud is essential to #1 and pointing to the words as you read favorite books greatly enhances the development of number #2.

Also in young readers you are developing a important connection between the words and the mental picture that develops in the mind. You have heard the phrase, “the book was better than the movie.” You will not hear that from a struggling reader. A movie or video game flashes by the viewer at 30 frames per second, action packed, no decoding needed. Those flashing screens are a captivating attraction, that presents a real challenge when bringing a young reader up to speed. A screen can grab a young one’s attention at once, learning to read lacks that instant gratification.

The same is true of number sense, which is easily developed while playing board games, but the key is playing games, not interacting with a screen. If a parent is investing the time to read and play board games (all rich in language development) with their young children then some screen time won’t have much of a detrimental effect on school. But if it’s TV and screen time most waking hours, then school will most likely be a struggle. Hint: As a pair of teachers, we did not have a TV in the house until the oldest reached high school, other screens were not so mainstream back then.