Screen Savers?

Five-year-old Stevie Vago admires his prize collection -- a piano, a bubble maker, a campfire kit and a beach ball, to name a few of his digital rewards.

But his sprawling cyber clubhouse, complete with a backyard patio and haphazard home furnishings, comes at a cost.

"You earn tickets by reading the books," Stevie says, explaining the rules of the online game with a baby-toothed grin.

Before him, the computer screen in his Jersey City, N.J., home displays Visit W3Schools! , a website that encourages active reading by providing timed electronic stories alongside word and comprehension games for children in kindergarten through sixth grade.

Using a ticketing rewards program, children read stories and then purchase prizes.

"Now it's time to whisper-read," the computerized voice tells Stevie as a faux book, complete with illustrations, appears on the screen. When Stevie's mouse glides over a line in the story, it becomes highlighted in yellow, making it easier for him to follow.

He scrolls down the first page, hits the arrow at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, continuing the pattern until he reaches the last page.

Within five minutes, he clicks "Stop." "Outstanding! You met your goal," the computer praises, showcasing Stevie's reading rate of 168 words per minute. One hundred more tickets land in his bank and he's one step closer to purchasing that 1,000-ticket puppy he's had his eye on.

Stevie's interest in digitalized reading isn't unusual as children have started using computers and electronic devices to read in school and at home. With the success of sites like Ticket to Read and Starfall -- the launch of a children's e-reader by Vtech this month -- and the growth of digital book programs like TumbleBooks and the International Children's Digital Library, children now have an online reading niche.

"There has been a proliferation of screens," said Shelley Pasnik, director of the Center for Children and Technology at the Educational Development Center, a worldwide program based in Newton, Mass.

"And there's no reason to believe that that's going to slow down."

Scholastic Inc.'s "2010 Kids & Family Reading Report" found that 25 percent of children had read on a digitalized device with a third of children ages 9 to 17 reporting that they would read more books for fun if they had e-readers.

Tech It Out

Each year more children grow up with greater access to technology, allowing youngsters to become technologically savvy at an earlier age. Not surprisingly, kids ages 6 to 8 were the highest percentage of those surveyed that had read a book on a digital device.

"Kids just live with technology today," said Kyle Good, vice president of corporate communication at Scholastic Inc. "It's ubiquitous. It's unavoidable."

Parents, educators and industry experts see the transition from print to online as a natural progression, one that benefits literacy. Most agree that expanding the traditional boundaries of a text -- with reward programs, sounds and graphics -- will encourage students to read more often.

But as children learn to read on digital devices, should parents and educators be concerned about how it's affecting their development?

"Reading is a route for acquiring information," said Peter Gray, a specialist in developmental and evolutionary psychology.

For young kids who are learning to read, Gray said, a computer can be a better tool than a traditional book. "It's easier to learn on your own on a computer than a book because a computer interacts with you."

Gray, who writes a blog called "Freedom to Learn" for Psychology Today, doesn't see any drawbacks of children learning to read on digital devices. "Once you can read on a computer, you can read on anything," he said.

Parents whose children are active online readers praise the interactivity that makes reading a game, but there are those who are skeptical. Andrew Getzfeld, a professor at New York University, and a specialist in abnormal and school psychology, compares the creation of e-books to electric can openers: "You're trying to improve on something that's perfect and you can't," he said.

A lack of ownership, for example, can be considered one major disadvantage in e-reading. "I think kids need to have a sense of a thing that they call their own, especially if there are siblings in the family," Getzfeld said.

"If everything is shared out of necessity, to me, a child to an extent is losing their sense of identity."

There's also a feeling of uneasiness among child-development experts of the reward programs embedded within certain e-book formats for children. Although encouraging and engaging children, it may run the risk of ruining the meaning of learning.

"By giving them so many rewards, what children are doing is looking at the ends rather than the actual process," he said.

Instead, Getzfeld advocates parents working closely with children who are resistant to reading rather than offering unnecessary incentives. "Parents aren't interacting enough with their kids," he said. "What we're doing is depersonalizing everything."

With the computer often replacing parental interaction, the speech-to-text format of children's e-books garners the biggest criticism; some reading has a computerized rather than humanistic quality.

But, with the ever-evolving landscape of education, the interactivity can be beneficial for some. "More and more children have learning disabilities or learn differently," said Barbara Genco, a former president of the Association for Library Service to Children.

"I don't think it's a bad idea to use every sense that a child has to support their reading or their learning."