Reapproaching human-chatbot interaction for early literacy development: A learner-centered review of literature and technology prior to ChatGPT 3.0

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has presented tremendous potential in reshaping early childhood education, particularly in literacy development. Extending this concern, recent investigations have been marching along with the wide application of LLM (Large Language Model) and contributing to the on-going discourse on various roles assumed by this increasingly prominent form of human-computer interaction (HCI) for human development. However, multiple challenges associated with AI deployment at the early stage of life remain underexplored, most of which can date back as early as before the game-changing debut of ChatGPT 3.0. Taking a learner-centered approach to such long-standing issues, this paper addresses the implications of chatbots as educational tools for enhancing early literacy in an increasingly diverse socio-cultural landscape. First, through a media archeological lens, the literature review reapproaches certain early chatbot features, discerning the instructional designs and implications for early literacy development, while considering the potential overlaps among chatbot, videogame, and virtual pet as three practically related technologies. The following discussion on a chatbot prototype is grounded in the insights drawn from a case study on the Talking Tom Cat application, as an example of combining chatbot, videogame, and virtual pet features and presenting opportunities for early literacy development even without the use of AI. The “AI-less” case study focuses on the foundational designs and analyzes 14 curated user comments to understand user experiences, highlighting the advantages of a chatbot-like videogame slash virtual pet, and foregrounding its limitations as caveats for future chatbot designs. Hopefully, this paper could contribute to the agenda of AI evolutions in early personalized education, offering practical implications and theoretical insights into how AI-driven learning tools could be devised and implemented in rapidly changing socio-cultural systems.