Young and connected

I had the pleasure of being at the head a third-grade class at Perkins Elementary School for 45 minutes today as a "celebrity" guest reader. This was the fifth or sixth time I've been a Nevada Reading Week volunteer, and my first visit to Elissa Isham's classroom.

Again, the kids amazed me. The younger set continues to dig their heels into all things digital and mobile. For the first time, every hand went up when I asked how many of the students use the Internet at home. Last year, about 80 percent of the third graders at a different school said they connect from home.

What really surprised me was the number of hands that shot up when I asked how many have their own cell phone. More than three-quarters of the 25 students said they carry mobile phones, and some said they had iPhones. These are 8- and 9-year-olds!

Only a handful said they read the Review-Journal regularly, but almost all of them said they had seen online news about the earthquake in Chile. Sadly, none were readers of my column, so I showed them how to navigate the lvrj.com Web site and also showed them the electronic edition of the newspaper. We focused on the comics for a while, before showing them the features of the replica. I also discussed electronic readers, including the pending arrival of the Apple iPad. I told them they would one day look back and remember when the guy from the R-J showed them that archaic Amazon Kindle.

The kids were impressed to learn just how many books the e-readers can hold, and I wowed them with an on-the-fly download of a sample of a biography of Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. The students spent a lot of time with Seuss earlier in the week, as they marked the 102nd anniversary of his birth.

Every student carries a public library card, and I showed them how to get started checking out digital content at the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District site (www.lvccld.org).

I'm guessing next year all the kids will be carrying smartphones and connecting to more digital content.