In supporting primary students in their research tasks, one of the most common frustrations and observations shared by the classroom teacher and I involves the lack of deep reading by students in digital media. I am a little ashamed to admit that it took me a couple of years to realise that this lack of linear reading and deep reading in digital media for research purposes needed to be explicitly addressed.
Most of the information locating and selecting students do is through online sources (found or provided or both). It has been this way for quite a while. Often, without clear instruction, students will engage with the text briefly and grab snippets of bits they believe might address whatever question they are trying to answer. Their skimming and scanning can be quite reliable- it seems this is taught and/or learned through students’ swift and regular interactions with digital media. Yet, thoughtful and sustained reading is often missing.
Kim and Toh (2020) outline several considerations and areas of instruction in their article “How to teach digital reading?” Here, they discuss how the affordances of multimodal digital texts are both a boon and something which readers must learn to understand and master as a user. Digital reading is not reading. Often, it is an elaborate coordination of text and image and layout and colour and interactivity.
It must be noted that this article was discovered digitally but printed and stapled for my reading. This is how all my substantial reading is done. The margins contain thoughts and questions; passages are underlined. I have a notebook where summarising statements are collected. Walsh’s literature review confirms that academic readers prefer printed versions for this reason. This is a preference I have developed and allow myself; something I do not often extend to students.
This active reading was modelled and taught by my step-father who was an academic and avid life-long learner. Much to all of our frustration, he had amassed boxes and boxes of index cards containing his notes on every book he ever read. This was not digital reading- it was reading with a purpose. He taught-and practised- how to read to understand. I am sure I was taught this at school (though maybe not in primary) but I have benefitted from having this learning in context of my home (though it was not always appreciated at the time). I do not use digital annotation tools, but I really must and I must teach some modified version of this to students as they move into upper primary.
While I have not quite gotten to Lim and Toh’s recommended ‘systemic functional approach’ to teaching a meta language for develop multimodal semiotic awareness, I do teach explicit skills in slowing down and being present in a digital text. Once a decision has been made to select a text, the skimming and scanning is pushed aside. We make decisions on when and why we follow a hyperlink. Students must be made aware of their reading behaviours and reminded of the purpose. Importantly, they also need to be given time to slow down and engage. Just as we have begun teaching students to understand their reactions and behaviours in terms of brain activity and development, we ought to teach current understanding on brain activity when we read in different media.
Walsh’s literature review on screen and paper reading contributes a further understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of electronic and paper reading. It echoes a need to understand behaviours in how digital resources are approached and engaged with. By sharing some of these observations with students, by helping them become more aware of themselves in the research process, students can, hopefully, begin to develop different reading behaviours.
Lim, F.V. & Toh, W. (2020). How to teach digital reading? Journal of Information Literacy, 14(2).
Walsh, G. (2016). Screen and paper reading research- a literature review. Australian Academic and Research Libraries, 47 (3), pp. 160-173
