Reading Aloud, Age by Age: The Early School Years (6-9)

Once school starts, homework arrives, and screen time starts competing with a whole new set of demands on a child’s day.

Kids this age are working hard — a full day at school, followed by homework, followed by whatever energy is left for play. Coming home and unwinding in front of a favorite show is a completely reasonable part of that routine. The real question isn’t whether to allow any screen time, but what it’s actually doing for — or to — your child.

Here’s where screens genuinely shine: kids at this age are absorbing a lot of new material — kanji, history, science. Seeing something happen, rather than just reading a description of it, tends to be quicker to understand and easier to remember. Used this way — for a science experiment, a history topic, a fun quiz to drill vocabulary — video and apps can be a real asset to learning.

Learning through video isn't the problem. The problem is when it becomes the only way a child learns anything.

School is also, inevitably, a group experience — and navigating people is a skill that can only be practiced with people. If a child gets upset with a friend, no app is going to comfort them the way a parent can, or say “let’s try that again, I’ll help” the way a person would. Video and games can be reset and restarted endlessly; real relationships can’t, and that’s exactly what makes navigating them worth practicing.

None of this argues for banning screens — used well, they’re genuinely useful tools for a school-age kid. It just means being intentional about the balance, and keeping some space in the week for the things only a person, and a shared story, can give a child.