Many parents struggle with this question when establishing a home study routine for their child. Not everything has to be done directly on a screen, but it’s also unrealistic to avoid them completely. The key is properly balancing the two.
Why the app-versus-workbook debate misses the point
When discussing children and educational technology, you will soon realize that there are two opposing groups. One claims that apps represent the future, are adaptive, and infinitely patient. So, why would you give a child a photocopied worksheet in 2024? The other group argues that screens are leading to a decrease in attention span and the art of handwriting. Therefore, the best option is to keep the tablet out of reach until the assignment is completed on paper.
Both groups are responding to a non-existent issue. The real question is: what is the goal of this specific learning activity, and which approach will lead you there with the least resistance?
For instance, a child who needs to memorize multiplication tables must have fast, frequent, low-pressure recalls with immediate feedback. On the other hand, a child who is practicing writing long answers needs to develop ideas while being timed and should do it by hand, with no access to spell checking or the option to “try again”. These are two different tasks. However, most mistakes made while applying blended learning in a home environment come from treating these tasks as if they could be solved using the same tool.
What the research actually says about school tech spending
If you think more tools lead to better achievement, the data doesn’t support that idea. According to the OECD’s 2015 review of PISA results from 31 countries (which included the U.S.), scores for reading, math, and science stayed about the same in schools that threw everything but the kitchen sink at classroom technology. Overall, tablets and laptops didn’t make enough of a difference.
That information is frequently misquoted as proof that technology is a waste of money. It doesn’t say that at all. It concludes that the outcomes of using technology are directly related to how it’s deployed in teaching, not on how much of it can be bought. That’s a subtle but important distinction for a parent who is deciding whether to purchase an online tool that requires a subscription. You aren’t purchasing an A+. You are buying a resource that could pay off big, or not at all, dependent on if, where, when, and how it is applied in the classroom and at home.
Retrieval practice works on paper and on a screen
The most effective learning method based on cognitive science research is retrieval practice. It means actively recalling information from memory rather than simply re-reading it. Flashcards, quizzes, practicing with old exams, or even self-testing are more effective than going through a textbook and highlighting key points for the second time.
What’s important about this for a blended approach is that it doesn’t matter what the form of delivery is. Whether it’s a flashcard application that spreads your questions out over a few days through a programmed algorithm or the pile of index cards that your mom or dad gives you each day and says “let’s go over these now” the next day. It’s the same thing. It’s spaced repetition and active recall triggered by getting something out of your head. It’s an effective blend, in this case, of technology and low tech (a piece of paper or something). But the learning isn’t any different.
Exam realism: the factor that settles a lot of arguments
There is an easy to explain why we should keep paper in the mix that does not involve cognitive theory: quite a few high-stakes tests are still taken using a pencil on paper, sitting in a desk, with no autocorrect and no hints. If a student has relied on an app for all their preparation, the test itself will be their first time practicing under similar physical and time constraints.
This is particularly concerning with entrance exams where the skill being evaluated is almost as important as the knowledge being tested. The UK 11+ tests this as well: the verbal reasoning section rewards children for developing speed and accuracy with time and handwritten practice, rather than simply what is learned. If your child is studying for one of these, it probably makes sense to think of digital learning and paper practice as two different things that complement one another, and this verbal reasoning practice guide discusses how to pair spaced app-based recall with authentic, carefully-timed paper based mocks, as you want that carryover to the real exam to be as seamless as possible.
The same principle applies to any type of paper-based, timed, handwritten exam. For a significant portion of study, the candidate must practice under those exact conditions. Confidence gained from training on your phone doesn’t easily transfer to using a pencil and a booklet.
Where screens genuinely earn their place
Adaptive learning software has an advantage over paper – it can adjust in real time to the child using it. If a child gets three fractions questions in a row wrong, a well-designed app will offer an easier question or a scaffold, and if the child breezes through the next set of questions, making few errors, the app will increase the difficulty level. A parent checking a workbook at the kitchen table can’t do that, nor can a printed answer key.
The second advantage screens offer is the “unglamorous but essential” role they play in keeping a spaced repetition schedule going from one day to the next, and the following week, and the week after that. The most efficient way to cement new knowledge is to recall it several times before you would naturally forget it. A great advantage of screens here is their ability to provide small, regular doses – too small for a child to exhaust or for a teacher to monitor. Multiple-choice questions and simple drag-the-box activities are perfect. Cooldown time: a few hours, enough time for the child’s mind to forget the details but not the new skills or information itself.
Points and gamification, streaks, small unlockable rewards – this keeps the motivation up. It sounds trivial but it works. A ten-year-old is much more likely to keep going with a five-minute recall session because there’s a 10-day streak to keep up than because a parent has said “didn’t you say you were going to do some Spanish this afternoon?” or “you should really do your vocab today.”
Where paper still wins, and why
Research conducted by Mueller and Oppenheimer in 2014, published in Psychological Science, discovered that students who had taken notes by hand performed better on conceptual questions than those who had taken notes on a laptop, despite the fact that the laptop note-takers recorded a greater quantity of notes overall. The researchers hypothesized that the act of taking notes by hand requires different types of cognitive processing than taking notes on a laptop, and they were right. When you type, you record the information you are hearing almost verbatim, as you do when you write in longhand, but most people write slower than they type, so when you are taking notes in longhand, you have to filter – often on the fly – which facts to write down, which puts you in a better processing mode than if you had been noncritically transcribing everything you heard.
A rule for matching medium to task
Cognitive load theory is helpful in understanding this. For a novice, who’s still mastering basic fluency, it makes sense to switch between formats to progressively build a skill. For a child grappling with a complicated, multi-step problem, that’s a sure way to overload rather than support their working memory. The overall guide this gives us:
Screen input, paper output.
Input is breaking learning into smaller parts. It’s adaptive and a program can deliver it to a child in an engaging way, no matter how many mistakes they make. Paper’s best used when the child has to put everything back together again into an extended answer or a complex solution. You want to match the exam conditions as closely as you can, there.
Learning a new grammar or vocabulary item is input. Writing a full essay is output. Drill and practice are probably better suited to screen time. Extended problem-solving is where you’ll get more bang for your pedagogical buck out of the humble sheet of A4. Build an exam-like environment for the big kids and print out readymade, wonderfully low-tech past papers. Did not invent. Not broken. Why fix?
The SAMR model isn’t a bad thinking tool to use in a more informal way when deciding which software to embrace. Is it essentially substitute reward-time-on-the-PC? Or does it do something PDFs don’t? That may sound overly cynical but the fact is lots of “educational” software on the market is very much in the Disney Princess sticker book category. And that’s fine, for what it is. It’s just not a reason to get your kids to ditch their workbooks.
Building the routine without fighting about screen time
General screen-time guidelines provided by health organizations are not appropriate for addressing this issue. Engaging in thirty minutes of adaptive spaced-recall practice is not comparable to watching a passive video for thirty minutes. The scenarios should not be measured in the same way, as the content the child is engaging with is what truly matters, rather than the amount of screen time.
A solution that could work, based loosely on the flipped classroom approach, is to follow this structure during the week: the child uses the app for 20 to 30 minutes each day to practice spaced repetition and skills drilling, with all notifications turned off. The app should be used in offline mode if possible, to minimize any interference from the device. Then, over the weekend, the child takes a paper-based mock exam using the skills and knowledge they have gained, in a timed setting without their phone in the room. Afterwards, the parent goes through the paper with the child, and they use the app’s statistics to determine which topics should be re-evaluated and practiced during the next week.
This cycle helps guarantee that retrieval practice continues consistently since this is the most effective intervention method. Additionally, it promotes the development of self-regulated learning skills, such as setting goals before a session, monitoring progression, and evaluating the outcome of a mock test. These skills are important for a child and will be required long after an exam is over.
All of this does not imply that you should take a stance either for or against the use of screens. Instead, for every task, you should determine which tool the child will benefit from the most and organize the week accordingly.