Home digital literacy practices of bilingual pre-school children in Australia

There is growing evidence of children’s engagement in multimodal literacy activities across a range of digital media in their homes. However, little is known about the ways in which bilingual children experience their languages in their everyday digital literacy events. As digital technologies are becoming increasingly common in society, children’s digital literacy practices in migrant families need to be better understood. This research explored the digital literacy and language experiences of Turkish-Australian families with preschool aged children in Melbourne, Australia. Data were collected via an online questionnaire from 35 parents, and four engaged in semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that although Turkish was spoken at home, most parents wanted their children to become fluent in both languages (English and Turkish). Approximately three quarters of the 3–5-year-old children used Tablets at home multiple times per week for entertainment, online learning and social purposes and most of them were provided with opportunities to engage with digital content in Turkish and English. This article reports and discusses the details of these data. Parents expressed a need for guidance from experts about the types of apps and programmes appropriate for children. The implications from this study are of value and relevance to early childhood educators, researchers and parents; assisting them to better support the language and literacy needs of young bilingual children.