This article explores the ways a young child’s play revealed his understanding of technology in contextual and decontextualized ways.The child, James, spent a year (age 21/2 to 31/2) learning how to share CD-ROM storybooks with his mother, who was also the researcher. James’s experience with the hypertext of CD-ROM storybooks is described and the relationship between technology, play, and literacy is explored. James’s experience with CD-ROM storybooks resulted in play behaviors in which he revealed his understandings of the technological concepts related to this new medium of storybook. Consequently, this article brings to the forefront questions concerning a re-conceptualization of literacy in view of new technologies and what internalization of technological concepts will mean to the next generation of emergent literacy learners.
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