Young children who are English Language Learners or have special learning needs can find it difficult to communicate in kindergarten classrooms. Open-ended tablet applications offer multi-modal tools for these children to communicate their ideas, engage with others, and demonstrate and develop their knowledge and skills. They position students as the producers and creators of the literacy content. Using pedagogical strategies such as effective routines, opportunities to collaborate and share with peers, and modelling, kindergarten educators can employ open-ended iPad apps to support the literacy and digital learning of children who are English Language Learners or who have special learning needs.

This 2-year research study followed 14 kindergarten classrooms in Ontario as they used open-ended tablet applications to support literacy learning. Through multimodal slideshows the children explored identities such as reporter, teacher, and architect during self-initiated role-play.  The slideshows they created demonstrated multimodal productions that were longer, more complex, and more varied than their literacy production with traditional literacy tools and practices. Rather than supplanting traditional kindergarten meaning-making practices such as role-play, children folded digital affordances into their play in ways that expanded the range of identities they explored and the tools and practices with which they explored them.

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