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Information literacy in early childhood

Abstract:

This paper describes a methodological approach towards studying information literacy in preschoolers (age 3-6 years). As information literacy gains more and more importance, its representation in young children becames a particularly interesting aspect. Also young children are more and more confronted with media, whether they want to or not. Therefore, it becomes also more and more important to raise awareness of how to deal with them and make children early information literate. Technoliteracy is a subject in the educational context of preschoolers. Technoliteracy, media literacy and information literacy cannot be separated from each other. Especially with regard to the information literacy of young children, we have to consider also media literacy. Young children lock basic elements such as reading, writing and arithmetic, which are necessary for information literacy in general. These aspects can indeed be converted into viewing, painting and counting, but it is in addition necessary to focus strongly the behaviour with media in the childhood context. We developed a method for determining information, technoliteracy and media literacy, planning to perform an analysis with children, their parents and their nursery nurses. Hence, we use three different methods to study three different levels. Especially the analysis of information literacy of children poses a challenge. lts not possible to get information with the help of simple questionnaires or dry interviews. Here we plan to use puppet Interviews and other playful approaches. This is a playful way to gain information about the subject. In the adult context we plan to use semi structured interviews and questionnaires. These analyses take place across different nurseries in Düsseldorf and Hong Kong. The study is planned as an International comparison between China and Germany.

Keywords: Information literacy, Kindergarten, Childhood Studies, media literacy

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