Friday 31 August 2018

Response to reading: "Digital Text is Changing How Kids Read—Just Not in the Way That You Think"

Key parts for me - 







Key points. 
  1. Students reading online is more taxing and is different. Not better or worse, but a different set of skills, or rather, a more fast-paced set of skills is required. Readers are bombarded with ads, links, pictures, text that they are trying to read and text that is distracting, all at the same time. No wonder they can get distracted. 
  2. Children need to be taught how to read online as well as in books. If this reading and decision making process is faster and different, we can't expect them to read the same way. We need to explicitly teach how to make these decisions, how to know if i am reading the right thing, should move on, should skip a paragraph, should click that link over there... 
  3. Attention spans are shorter. I can definitely see that,  in adults around me more so than my 10 year olds. We grew up with screens as new and exciting, so always want the digital stimulation it brings. Not many 20 somethings I know can sit and read a paperback for more than about 10 minutes. And yet... those same people I am thinking about who can't deal with life without technology, also get bored of it because they churn through so much content there's nothing new anymore. 
  4. Reading as decoding and making meaning occurs in both worlds, what is difference is the depth of that meaning. Reading is reading. Do you know what these words are saying? Then you are reading. But reading online, so it seems, demands less in-depth thought and analysis of what is being read. 


1 comment:

  1. I think that it's an important distinction to make. Reading digital texts is not better or worse but it is different and uses a different skill set.

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