Good News Tommy rides a colorful train out of a television as children turn screen time into hands-on play with toy trains and building blocks, illustrating active learning from YouTube.

Children, Learning and YouTube: Turn Watching Into Doing

June 23, 2025

YouTube can entertain a child for hours.

But can children actually learn from what they watch?

For parents, that's an increasingly important question. Educational videos, songs, alphabet programs, science experiments, animated stories and countless other types of children's content are only a tap away.

Some of it is genuinely educational.

Some of it simply looks educational.

And even when a video contains something worth learning, there's another question:

Will a young child take what they see on a screen and use it in the real world?

Research into how young children learn from digital media suggests that the answer can be yes—but the way children watch may matter almost as much as what they watch.

Young Children Don't Learn From Screens the Same Way They Learn From People

Adults move between screens and the real world without thinking much about it.

A young child is still developing that ability.

Researchers have long studied what is sometimes called the "video deficit" or "transfer deficit": young children can have more difficulty learning information from a two-dimensional screen and applying it in the real world than they do when learning through direct interaction.

That doesn't mean children can't learn from video.

They can.

But it helps explain why putting the word educational in a video's title doesn't automatically make watching it equivalent to talking, playing, exploring or learning with another person.

Something Interesting Happens When an Adult Joins In

In 2024, researchers published a systematic review and meta-analysis examining whether young children learn more effectively from digital media when an adult participates with them.

The researchers examined 17 studies involving 1,288 children from birth through age six. Overall, they found a small positive effect of adult-child co-use on children's learning from digital media.

The researchers also emphasized important limitations, including relatively small samples and limited variety among the studies. So this isn't evidence that simply sitting beside a child magically turns every video into a learning experience.

But the finding fits with something parents already understand intuitively:

Children learn through interaction.

A parent can point something out.

Ask a question.

Repeat a new word.

Connect something on the screen to something the child already knows.

Or simply respond when the child becomes excited about what they're seeing.

That's very different from pressing PLAY and walking away.

You Don't Have to Turn Every Video Into a Lesson

This doesn't mean parents need to sit beside their children conducting a miniature classroom every time a cartoon comes on.

Sometimes a child is simply watching something because it's fun.

That's okay.

But when you do want a video to become a learning experience, a little interaction can help.

You can ask simple questions like:

"What do you think is going to happen?"

"What color is that train?"

"Can you make that sound?"

"Have we ever seen one of those?"

Suddenly watching becomes a conversation.

The Most Important Part May Happen After the Screen Turns Off

Here's where the idea gets especially useful for families.

Children don't have to leave an experience on the screen. Parents can help connect what children watch with things they can touch, say, sing, build and explore in the real world.

That gives us a remarkably simple strategy:

Turn watching into doing.

Watched a video about animals?

Go outside and look for birds, squirrels or insects.

Watched a counting song?

Count blocks, crackers or toy cars.

Watched a video about colors?

Go on a color hunt around the house.

Watched a song with movements?

Stand up and do them.

Watched a story?

Ask your child what happened—or invent a different ending together.

Watched a train video?

Build a railroad.

From "I've Been Working on the Railroad" to Your Living Room

At Storybooksong, one of the animated videos we've created is our version of "I've Been Working on the Railroad."

The song and animation can be the beginning of the experience rather than the end.

After watching, a child could build a train from blocks.

Line up chairs and pretend they're passenger cars.

Make train sounds.

Draw railroad tracks.

Sing the song while marching around the house.

Count the train cars.

Or turn the living room into an imaginary railroad.

The video provides the spark.

The child provides the imagination.

That's the idea behind the picture accompanying this article: the railroad doesn't stay inside the television. It comes right out into the child's world.

What Makes a Children's Video Worth Watching?

There isn't a magic checklist that guarantees a child will learn from a particular YouTube video.

But parents can ask a few useful questions.

Does my child understand what's happening?

Is the video actually teaching something—or merely calling itself educational?

Does it encourage curiosity, language, movement, singing or imagination?

Can my child connect what they're watching with something in real life?

And perhaps most importantly:

What does my child want to do after watching it?

The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages families to think about children's media experiences in context, including co-viewing and talking about digital content together.

At the same time, digital media shouldn't crowd out the experiences young children need outside the screen: conversation, reading, movement, sleep, imaginative play and interaction with other people.

The Screen Can Be a Doorway

So perhaps the goal isn't to create a childhood without screens.

And it isn't to assume that putting something educational on YouTube automatically creates learning.

There's a much more useful middle ground.

Choose good things to watch.

Talk about them together.

And whenever you can, take something from the screen and bring it into your child's world.

Because sometimes the best thing an educational video can do is inspire a child to stop watching it—and start singing, talking, building, moving, imagining or playing.

Turn watching into doing.