Literacy in kindergarten is developed through many kinds of experiences and a broad array of topics. Kindergartners experiment with print in dramatic play areas, writing centers, journals, and collaborative activities. Over the past two decades, the computer has provided another environment in which children can learn about print, and computer stations have become fixtures in many kindergarten classrooms. Child-centered writing and drawing software helps children create texts that incorporate sound, animation, detailed graphics, a rich spectrum of color, and a variety of letter forms and sizes. Children using such software have many tools available as they compose their texts, some that allow them to replicate traditional print (e.g., the “virtual” pencil and eraser used as a drawing and writing tool on an electronic page) and some that extend the limitations of traditional writing by making print talk and pictures move.

Although the computer offers possibilities for creating texts whose form and content are distinctly different from those of conventional print (Reinking, 1994), most classroom applications for writing still treat the computer screen as a page awaiting inscription. This is probably because the basis of writing and drawing programs, e-mail projects, and web publishing is word-processing, and word-processing applications are easily integrated into the elementary curriculum. Word-processing has been shown to be of value to the young learner. It frees the writer from the laborious task of correcting and recopying and eliminates overattention to form at the expense of content (Cochran-Smith, Kahn, & Paris, 1988). Young writers are able to devote more concentration to exploring ideas and to interacting with others. The computer also has benefits in promoting writing as a discovery process and in developing logical thought (Daiute, 1988). Collaborative, computer-based writing activities facilitate primary-aged children's use of functional language by establishing a context for experimenting with oral language and print (Kent & Rakestraw, 1994).

Labbo (1996) observed that kindergartners treat the computer as both a play space and a writing tool, moving back and forth between the two stances. Screenland is her name for this place where children explore the purposes and forms of written language as well as the graphic features of other media. Here, children experiment with placing and moving objects on a screen and with figuring out how things work in much the same way as they manipulate pots, pans, and knobs on a stove at a housekeeping center. Conventions of print are tested using writing and drawing features of multimedia programs. Keyboard and screen are objects to be acted upon as well as tools for communication.

This article describes two ways of using multimedia to support kindergartners' understanding of narrative texts. In an instructional application, teachers used writing and math programs to create class stories. Elements of the children's writing showed that, for some children, the screen was viewed as a place to play as well as to write. In another approach to using multimedia to develop sense of story, a mother and child collaborated to create a narrative using a story-writing program.

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