A multimodal content analysis of popular early childhood stories and read-alouds on YouTube

Read-alouds and educational television have well-documented benefits for early childhood literacy learning. Meanwhile, media platforms like YouTube are becoming a growing force in the lives of children. Yet, little is known about the content and educational affordances and constraints of YouTube content design for young learners, such as read-alouds. Drawing on frameworks from emergent digital literacy and multimodality, this study presents a content analysis of the 50 most-viewed YouTube videos found when searching for “preschool read-alouds.” Here, we examine their video features (e.g., reader presence, text/page display, visual/sound effects), story features (e.g., genre, character types, instructional focus), and instructional strategies used before, during, and after the reading (e.g., asking a question, modeling a think aloud, giving a next step). The findings indicate that while many videos used multimodal elements to enhance the story delivery (e.g., sound effects and animated text), few incorporated features known to promote deeper comprehension, such as contextualized questioning, vocabulary support, or interactive prompts. These findings have implications for early childhood educators, caregivers, and content creators, highlighting the need for more intentional design of digital read-alouds that align with early literacy development goals, as well as the important role of adult mediation of YouTube content for children.