The development of children's language and ethical media competences and media skills

Abstract

The children's developing media competences and media skills are evaluated in this article on the basis of the evaluation indicator developed by Hautaviita (2012). The indicator has been developed for measuring the 6–9-year-old children's (the preschoolers and the pupils in grades 1-2) media competences. In it, the children's developing media skills are divided into practical, social, language and ethical media competences, of which this article concentrates on the last two, language and ethical media competences. The research material has been collected by observing sixteen Finnish children closely for a year. In this article, we aim to describe the development of these media competences and how they can be influenced. It provides a wider opportunity to utilize the information effectively in the learning.