Touching Screens. How children learn gestures for playing with tablets together with their (grand)parents Touching Screens. Les gestes appris par les enfants sur écran tactile pendant des sessions de jeu avec leurs (grands-)parents En Fr

Résumé En

In this paper, we analyze interactions with tablets in a specific setting: during a children’s festival, the Lyon public library proposes a game session on a large tablet placed against a wall, small children and their (grand)parents participate in the presence of a library staff member, acting as activity leader. The accomplishment of actions on the touch screen requires a fine-grained motricity and corporeal control in order to shape specific hand configurations and body movements. Adults support children’s physical efforts and provide assistance through scaffolding practices: showing the right gestures, accompanying children’s arms and hands during a gesture realization, producing instructions and words of encouragement.Relying on a fine-grained interaction analysis, we propose a multimodal study of the development of children’s gestures on the tablet. Various learning phases can thus be tracked on a microgenetic scale.