Different Kinds of Reading

Will Richardson talked in his blog about how reading online is different than reading a book.

In his post Reading Online is Not Reading On Paper he said

I’ve made myself take time over the last few months to read longer texts, and after plowing through three really, really engaging and challenging novels in the past month or so, I’m feeling like my brain is back in gear somehow. It’s getting closer to balance.

The mental reading process is very akin to the mental learning process. There is value in the mental persistance in reading longer, engaging texts, because that builds our “mental muscles” for persistance in learning. As student reading levels rise, the length of the texts they read increases, so they need to be able to stick with those texts on their reading level.

However, there are different kinds of reading. My 3rd graders are moving from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” The good readers are able to easily adjust their reading rate depending on the density of the material. However, poor reader have to be taught this skill. Academic texts are very dense and require the reader to slow down, read carefully, and possibly take notes. Fiction is not an dense and be read more quickly. Personal writing like letters and blogs can be rather light and quick to read. Students have to learn to adjust their reading rates, so a constant diet of any one kind of reading will not help them reach their ultimate potential as a reader.

Is there value to reading online? Yes, but it is a different kind of reading. Online reading can best be done in a couple ways. One way is more linear, with the page fitting on the screen and a link taking you to the next page. The other is hyperlinked writing in which the reader can click links within the article to read further about ideas within it.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

2 comments.

Ed Tech can affect schools in remote areas »« K-12 Online Conference 2008 is coming soon