You see it often in various social media posts and memes; the idea that your child’s education is at risk due to the proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. These warnings paint pictures of slack-jawed children who can’t read, write, or think to save their lives, endlessly hypnotized by the warm glow of their device’s screen. Brain death by smartphone: we have an app for that!
While it certainly is prudent to monitor and ration out electronic device time (after all, too much of ANYTHING isn’t good for you!), perhaps things aren’t as dire as these posts, articles, and memes make them out to be. In fact, you can use your iPad to strengthen your child’s reading comprehension and stimulate their imaginations by creating a book for them.
And who knows? If the book is good enough, who’s to say you couldn’t try to market it? Wouldn’t THAT be something!
Here’s what you need to keep in mind when using your iPad to create that book.
There’s An App For..Well, You Know The Drill
Yes, once again, the old “They got an app for that” cliché gets trotted out because, hey, they just so happen to have one for this very project, which is a good thing, since you can’t build anything without tools!
The blog post “Fun Family Project: Help Your Kids Create a Book on the iPad”tells us that, first of all, you need to have access to an app that’s easy for the whole family to use and lets you actually create a personalized book in no time.
Map Out The Fundamentals
So you have your device, your app, and your kids. So far, so good. Now you need to nail down the story’s basics. For instance, who or what are the main characters? Where and when is the story set? What is the challenge or obstacle that the protagonists must overcome? How do the characters eventually resolve the situation?
Then, of course, there’s the wrap-up. Is there a lesson to be learned? Is this a self-contained, one-shot story, or will there be more adventures?
This is the part of the book design for which you and your child can share equal responsibility. Not only is it a chance to work together on a project, but it’s also an opportunity for your child to exercise his or her creativity.
Add Design Extras
Back to doing technical stuff, so this stage is best left to an adult. Add any images or other files to the manuscript to complete the look. But there is still something for your younger partner to do: this is an excellent chance for your children to make their illustrations for the book. They could create images via a different app, or use the most traditional means of drawing, then having the images scanned into electronic files, then placed in the book.
When it’s all said and done, you and your children will have a beautiful book to use on your iPad; a source of entertainment for the family, and a source of pride for the child who helped write it!