Different Ways to Learn: How Libraries Can Support Diverse Learning Needs 

How structured activities, flexible interaction, and purposeful educational technology can give children more ways to participate in the library. 

Libraries welcome children with different strengths, interests, abilities, and support needs. Some children eagerly explore new activities independently. Others prefer a demonstration, spoken instructions, or time to return to something familiar. 

Learning Disabilities Awareness Month offers an opportunity to consider how libraries can make learning experiences more accessible to these different learners. 

Books, story times, hands-on activities, and educational technology can all contribute. The opportunity lies in offering children different ways to engage with information, practice skills, and discover what interests them. 

For libraries, that raises a practical question: How can the resources already in the children’s space create more opportunities for participation? 

More Than One Way to Begin 

Wadena City Library has grown alongside the community it serves.

A 2017 space needs assessment found that the library’s former building, largely unchanged for 32 years, had reached capacity. As more young families used the library and demand grew for programming beyond traditional collections, staff and city leadership began reconsidering what their library needed to provide.

Among the priorities were dedicated spaces for children, teens, and adults; greater flexibility for community programming; accessibility; and more hands-on learning opportunities for children.

The library moved into its current home in 2023, creating a space designed around those changing needs.

Within its children’s area, interactive learning quickly became an important part of the experience.

Making Learning Visible and Repeatable 

Clear tasks can give children something concrete to investigate. 

On AWE stations, Kids Learn to Sort invites children to organize objects by shape, color, size, and other characteristics. Puzzle Shapes includes matching pairs, colors, sizes, and shapes, alongside basic counting. Pre-coding Penguins introduces activities involving matching, sequences, and patterns. 

These titles illustrate how educational content can make a task visible and understandable. Children can explore relationships, make choices, and revisit familiar activities. 

For children who want more time with a concept, repeatable activities provide opportunities to try again without needing to move at another child’s pace. A caregiver or librarian can offer a brief prompt, demonstrate a step, or allow time for independent exploration. 

The appropriate level of support will differ. Familiarity may help one child begin, while another may be ready for a new challenge. 

Purposeful Features Matter

Audio, animation, and interaction are most useful when they contribute to the learning task. 

Research by Takacs, Swart, and Bus found that multimedia features in digital storybooks can support comprehension and vocabulary when they reinforce the story. Interactive extras that pull attention away from the narrative can interfere with learning. 

Similarly, Hirsh-Pasek and colleagues emphasize active involvement, engagement, meaningful content, and social interaction when evaluating educational apps. 

For libraries, these findings encourage looking closely at what an activity asks a child to do. 

Paint the Square, for example, asks children to arrange colors and arrows in the correct order to match an image. Pango Build Park involves assembling blocks to create a path for a character. Both give children a visible goal and an opportunity to test their choices. 

Creative activities offer another form of participation. Fingertapps Music – Solo allows children to explore instruments and record their creations, while Jelly Jigsaw provides a collaborative, multi-touch puzzle experience. 

These examples offer different opportunities to solve, create, and share. Selecting among them should reflect the child’s interests and response to the activity. 

A Structured Environment with Room for Choice

The learning environment also matters. 

AWE’s preloaded educational content operates without requiring open internet access, giving children a defined collection of activities to explore. Libraries can manage maximum sound levels and offer headphones according to individual preferences. 

That structure can help staff introduce a resource and explain what children can do within it. However, comfort remains individual. One child may enjoy an activity’s music and movement, while another may prefer something quieter. 

AWE’s AutiSpark content provides additional options involving object association, sorting, sounds, words, and emotions. Along with other titles featured in AWE’s Supports & Titles for Neurodivergent Learners guide, it gives staff a starting point for exploring activities with families. 

Learning disabilities and neurodivergence are related but distinct topics, and children’s needs vary within both groups. A title’s features can help guide selection; a child’s diagnosis alone cannot determine the best activity. 

Connecting Digital Exploration With the Rest of the Library

A workstation experience can lead naturally into another library activity. 

A sorting game might be followed by arranging physical objects. A digital building challenge could connect with blocks or a makerspace activity. A narrated story might inspire a child to choose a related book. 

Caregivers can strengthen these connections through simple questions: “What did you notice?” “How did you choose that?” or “Would you like to show me?” 

The NAEYC and Fred Rogers Center position statement emphasizes intentional, developmentally appropriate technology use within a broader environment of relationships, play, and hands-on learning. 

Libraries are well positioned to offer that variety. Their value comes from bringing different resources together in a welcoming space where families can explore.

Supporting Participation Throughout the Year

Learning Disabilities Awareness Month can begin a conversation that continues beyond October. 

Libraries can consider whether children have understandable starting points, different ways to interact, opportunities to revisit activities, and assistance when they want it. Listening to caregivers and observing children’s responses can help staff make thoughtful adjustments. 

AWE Learning’s structured environment and range of educational titles can contribute to this approach by giving libraries additional options for engagement and skill practice. Individual experiences will vary, and these resources complement the support children receive at home and school. 

By combining purposeful digital activities with books, conversation, and hands-on discovery, libraries can give more children a place to begin—and reasons to keep exploring. 

Explore additional resources: 

• Neurodiverse Learning Support and Supports & Titles for Neurodivergent Learners 
  
• AWE Learning Research Brief and Library/School Logic Models 
  
• Platinum Version 4 Literacy Stations 
  
  
  Learn more about AWE Learning with your local representative to explore your options.
  
  info@awelearning.com | 610.833.6400 

Sources

CAST. (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, version 3.0. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/ 

Hirsh-Pasek, K., et al. (2015). Putting education in “educational” apps: Lessons from the science of learning. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(1), 3–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100615569721 

Takacs, Z. K., Swart, E. K., & Bus, A. G. (2015). Benefits and pitfalls of multimedia and interactive features in technology-enhanced storybooks: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 85(4), 698–739. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4647204/ 

NAEYC & Fred Rogers Center. (2012). Technology and interactive media as tools in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. 

AWE Learning. Supports & Titles for Neurodivergent Learners. Title availability varies by workstation version and purchased content modules. 

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Learn more about AWE Learning with your local representative to explore your options. 
 
info@awelearning.com      (610) 833-6400 

Beyond the Screen: How Interactive Early Learning Strengthens Family Engagement in a Small Rural Minnesota Library

What Wadena City Library’s experience reveals about the role of hands-on learning technology in attracting families, supporting young learners, and expanding engagement with library services.

Public libraries have long served as places for reading, discovery, and connection. As the needs of their communities evolve, so does the way families experience the library.

For families with young children, books and storytimes remain essential parts of that experience, but hands-on and interactive learning opportunities can provide another reason to walk through the door. When thoughtfully integrated into a children’s space, educational technology can complement traditional library resources while encouraging exploration, independent learning, and continued engagement with the library.

Wadena City Library in Wadena, Minnesota offers a compelling example.

As the library adapted its spaces and services around the needs of a changing community, interactive early learning became an important part of its approach. Today, two AWE Learning stations have become some of the most heavily used resources in the building, and their impact extends beyond the children using them.

The experience raises a larger question for public libraries:

Can interactive learning technology do more than provide an educational activity for children? Can it strengthen a family’s relationship with the library itself?

Wadena’s experience suggests that it can.

Interactive Learning Can Become a Draw for Families

Wadena City Library has grown alongside the community it serves.

A 2017 space needs assessment found that the library’s former building, largely unchanged for 32 years, had reached capacity. As more young families used the library and demand grew for programming beyond traditional collections, staff and city leadership began reconsidering what their library needed to provide.

Among the priorities were dedicated spaces for children, teens, and adults; greater flexibility for community programming; accessibility; and more hands-on learning opportunities for children.

The library moved into its current home in 2023, creating a space designed around those changing needs.

Within its children’s area, interactive learning quickly became an important part of the experience.

Wadena initially purchased one AWE Learning station. According to Branch Manager Renee Frethem, its popularity with children quickly demonstrated the need for another. 

“Wadena City Library has two AWE learning stations. We started with one station and quickly realized we needed at least one more due to the popularity with the children.”
— Renee Frethem, Branch Manager, Wadena City Library

Today, usage of the stations matches or exceeds the library’s traditional patron computers. Some families specifically visit the library so their children can use them.

That makes the technology more than another resource within the building.

It becomes a reason to visit.

The Screen Can Be the Beginning — Not the End — of the Library Experience

Educational technology and traditional library resources are sometimes treated as competing experiences.

Wadena’s experience suggests a different relationship.

Because the AWE Learning stations are located within the children’s area, a visit that begins with interactive learning naturally places families alongside books, collections, programming, and other library services.

And Wadena has seen that proximity translate into broader engagement.

“Families come in just to use the AWE’s and end up applying for library cards and checking out materials — it’s become a real beacon for bringing new families into the library.”
— Renee Frethem, Branch Manager, Wadena City Library

That ripple effect is significant.

A child may initially be interested in an educational game or activity. That interest brings the family into the library. Once there, the family encounters everything else the library has to offer.

Wadena’s broader family-centered environment supports that connection. The library offers weekly children’s storytimes, summer and winter reading programs, author events, community meetups, and dedicated spaces for different generations.

Interactive learning therefore does not have to replace books or traditional literacy experiences.

It can become another pathway toward them.

Small Libraries Need High-Impact Resources Without High Staff Burden

For small and rural libraries, introducing a new resource involves more than considering whether patrons will use it.

Staff must also consider what it will require to maintain.

Wadena City Library reports that its AWE Learning stations require very little day-to-day staff upkeep. Routine updates can be handled through a straightforward administrative process, allowing the technology to remain available without creating a significant additional responsibility for staff.

“There is very little staff upkeep on the machines — for a small branch like ours, that matters.”
— Renee Frethem, Branch Manager, Wadena City Library

At the same time, children have access to a range of age-appropriate, STREAM-focused programs and activities through responsive touchscreens, color-coded keyboards, and mice designed to support young learners.

The stations connect to Wi-Fi when updates are needed, but children cannot access the internet, they can only use the educational content installed on the machine.

For Wadena, sustainability also extends to how the stations were funded.

Both were purchased through community donations and grants rather than the city budget, demonstrating how outside funding can help libraries introduce new learning resources while protecting limited operating dollars.

Family-Centered Technology Works Best as Part of a Larger Ecosystem

One of the most important lessons from Wadena is that no single resource transformed the library on its own.

The AWE Learning stations are part of a broader effort to create a library around the families who use it.

Wadena’s current building includes dedicated children’s, teen, and adult spaces. Its children’s area was designed with room to grow as the town’s youngest population grows. A flexible community room accommodates events and gatherings, while drive-through pickup, 24/7 drop-off, and after-hours rentable space make the library more accessible within residents’ everyday lives.

Interactive learning exists within that larger ecosystem.

The result is a children’s space where young patrons can move between different types of learning and discovery, from educational technology to books, storytime, programs, and shared experiences with their families.

This is an important distinction for libraries evaluating technology for young patrons.

The goal is screen time with a purpose, using the right technology to increase engagement with learning and with the library.

What Wadena’s Experience Suggests for Public Libraries

Wadena City Library represents one community, and its experience should not be treated as a universal outcome for every library. However, its experience highlights several considerations for libraries evaluating how interactive learning fits into their children’s services.

1. Children’s Technology Can Become a Family Acquisition Tool

A resource designed for young learners can provide a reason for an entire family to enter the library. At Wadena, some families specifically visit for the AWE Learning stations and subsequently engage with additional library services.

2. Digital and Traditional Literacy Can Complement One Another

Interactive educational technology does not have to compete with books. Wadena has seen visits centered around its learning stations lead to library card applications and material checkouts.

3. Family Engagement Starts With Reasons to Visit

Storytimes, collections, community events, reading programs, and interactive learning can all serve as entry points. Offering multiple ways to engage allows families to build a library experience around their own interests and needs.

4. Staff Capacity Matters

For smaller libraries in particular, the value of a resource must be weighed against the time required to manage it. Wadena identifies minimal staff upkeep as an important benefit of its stations.

5. Community Funding Can Expand What Is Possible

Wadena funded its two stations through grants and community donations rather than its city budget, providing an example of how libraries can look beyond operating funds when introducing new educational resources.

6. Successful Resources Create Demand for Growth

Wadena began with one station, added a second in response to popularity, and hopes to add additional stations as space allows.

“We see these stations as a foundation to build on, not a finished project — as our space allows, we’d love to add more.”
— Renee Frethem, Branch Manager, Wadena City Library

Beyond the Screen

Wadena City Library’s experience demonstrates that the value of interactive early learning can extend beyond the time a child spends at a screen.

For Wadena, the AWE Learning stations have become heavily used resources, but their broader impact may be even more meaningful. They give children another way to learn and explore. They give families another reason to visit. And once those families arrive, they encounter books, programming, library cards, community connections, and the many other resources waiting for them.

That is where interactive learning can have its greatest impact.

The screen is not the destination. It is another doorway into everything the library has to offer.

Enjoy our blog? Subscribe here to receive our quarterly newsletter featuring a new blog directly in your inbox!

Learn more about AWE Learning with your local representative to explore your options. 
 
info@awelearning.com      (610) 833-6400 

Sources

Wadena City Library / Kitchigami Regional Library System; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates for Wadena, Minnesota; Wadena Area Chamber of Commerce; BKV Group, Wadena City Library project; AWE Learning Company endorsement letter from Wadena City Library, August 2026.