A New Literacy: The Internet and Reading Comprehension

1. A New Literacy: The Internet and Reading Comprehension Electronic texts introduce new supports as well as new challenges that can have a great impact on an individual's ability to comprehend what he or she reads. Proficiency in the new literacies of the Internet will become essential to our students' literacy future. (International Reading Association, 2001)

2. A Comparison of Linear vs. Hypertext Parent activity directions: One group reads the linear and one group reads the hypertext (online if possible). After 2 minutes compare summaries. Which group remembers more? List the distractions one encounters in the hypertext.

3. What is Reading Comprehension?RAND Reading Study Group's report (2002) defines it as • “The process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language" (p. 11). • It includes three elements: "the reader who is doing the comprehending, the text that is to be comprehended and the activity in which comprehension is embedded.” Reader RAND Reading Study Group. (2002). Reading for understanding: Towards an R&D program in reading comprehension. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Education. Text Activity

4. Does the Process of Reading Comprehension Change on the Internet? • “The Internet forces us to expand our understanding . . . by considering new aspects of comprehension that are clearly related to traditional comprehension areas (e.g., locating main ideas, summarizing, inferencing, and evaluating) but also require fundamentally new thought processes.” • “The Internet provides opportunities for interacting with new text formats (e.g., hypertext and interactive multiple media that require new thought processes); new reader elements (e.g., new purposes or motivations, new types of background knowledge, high-level metacognitive skills); and new activities (e.g., publishing multimedia projects, verifying credibility of images, participating in online synchronous exchanges).” • “The Internet expands and influences the sociocultural context in which a reader learns to read by providing collaborative opportunities for sharing and responding to information across continents, cultures, and languages.” Coiro, J. (2003). Reading Comprehension on the Internet: Expanding Our Understanding of Reading Comprehension to Encompass New Literacies. International Reading Association's journal. The Reading Teacher. Retrieved from: http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?href=/electronic/rt/2-03_column/index.html.

5. The Internet At School • Virtually all schools in the U.S. have computers and Internet access. • The use of technology is wide spread. • Federal and local governments, as well as education administrators have heavily invested in technology in schools. • Teachers are expected to keep pace with the technological developments, often will little training and with pre-Internet textbooks and curriculum. • Teachers have little time to model and train their students in the effective use of technology and in the online research process. “We are urging teachers and schools to implement technology with little or no empirically based guidance on how to do so in ways that enhance student learning” (Means, 2010, as cited in Samuels & Farstrup, p. 288) Samuels, S.J., & Farstrup, A.E. (2011). What research has to say about reading instruction (4th ed.) Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

6. The Internet At Home • Children in the U.S. aged 2-11 were using the Net about eleven hours a week in 2009 and that number is growing exponentially to this day (Carr, 2011). • A 2010 Generation M2 survey found that children spend over six hours a day with technologies, exceeding everything but sleep (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts as cited in Samuels & Farstrup, 2011). Carr, N. (2011). The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. New York: Norton & Company, Inc.

7. The Internet and Brain Development Neuroplasticity • The brain is adaptable and flexible, allowing us to continually adapt and learn. • “As particular circuits in our brain strengthen through the repetition of a physical or mental activity, they begin to transform that activity into a habit” (Carr, 2011, p. 34). Once forged, the brain desires to continue to engage those mental skills and activities. • “Survival of the busiest”(Schwartz as cited in Carr, 2011, p. 35) -Those mental skills that are not exercised are forgotten. Carr, N. (2011). The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. New York: Norton & Company, Inc.

8. Emotions Experienced on the Internet “The feelings are intoxicating – so much so that they can distract us from the Net’s deeper cognitive consequences” (Carr, 2011, p. 10). • When we are reading on the Internet, we feel like we are getting smarter, taking in more information. Multiple senses are engaged simultaneously and it delivers rewards and positive reinforcements with each click of the mouse. • The frequent interruptions in hypertext can scatter our thoughts, weaken our memory, and make us tense and anxious. • Information overloading can cause confusion, frustration, anger, stress, anxiety, depression, low motivation, and sometimes even panic (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008, p. 191). • The brain desires to continue to engage with newly forged skills and activities. This and the positive emotional effects of Internet reading can make it addictive. • “The Net delivers the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli – repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive – that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions” (Carr, 2011, p. 116). Palfrey, J. & Gasser, U. (2008). Born Digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives. New York: Basic Books.

9. Benefits to Reading and Comprehension on the Internet • Increased opportunities to engage and interact with information through reading • Collaborative/interactive opportunities to read and write, engaging with others across languages and cultures • Multiple modes of information can enhance comprehension, such as combined audio and visual presentations that engage different channels of the brain • The skills needed to scan and skim on the Internet sharpen decision-making and problem-solving ability Harris, F.J. (2005). I found it on the Internet: Coming of age online. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

10. Benefits to Reading and Comprehension on the Internet • Even ‘nonacademic’ technologies can be used for learning and engaging children in reading and writing for real purposes. • Personal growth and identity exploration are components of reading and learning online, providing authentic purposes for comprehension. • Children that struggle with traditional purposes for reading in the classroom can benefit from more ‘real life’ purposes of communication through email, blogs, wiki pages, and shared writing/reading online. • Children gain the skills, familiarity, and knowledge that they will need in the future to engage the broader world around them. Suyeyasu, K. (2010). Teachers Are the Center of Education: Writing, Learning and Leading in the Digital Age. Conceptualized and written by the College Board, the National Writing Project and Phi Delta Kappa International. Retrieved from: http://advocacy.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/2010-cb-advocacy-teachers-are-center.pdf

11. Challenges to Reading Comprehension on the Internet • “The Internet . . . provides new text formats, new purposes for reading, and new ways to interact with information that can confuse and overwhelm people taught to extract meaning from only conventional print” (International Reading Association, 2001). • The Internet wasn’t developed by educators to enhance learning. • Challenges to reading comprehension online include concentration and memory.

12. The Challenge of Concentration “We don’t see the forest when we search the web. We don’t even see the trees. We see twigs and leaves.” - Nicholas Carr • Combining many different kinds of information on a single screen fragments and disrupts our concentration. • The online environment “promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning” (Carr, 2011, p. 116). • In an eye-tracking study of Web users, Jakob Nielson (2006) found that the vast majority hopped quickly from one source to another, skimmed in a pattern resembling the letter F, and spent 4.4 seconds on a page, only reading up to 18 % of it. • “The Net’s cacophony of stimuli short-circuits both conscious and unconscious thought, preventing our minds from thinking either deeply or creatively” (p. 119). • “Attention is essential to the careful assessment of information quality” (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008, p. 166).

13. The Challenge of Memory • When the Web becomes a substitute for personal memory, our mental powers are weakened. • The quality of our memories depends on how the information is processed. The natural process of memory consolidation strengthens our minds. • The process of consolidating short-term memories as long-term memories is delicate and can be easily disrupted by any small distraction. • Attention and working memory greatly affect reading comprehension.

14. What studies reveal about Reading Comprehension on the Internet • Study 1: Comprehension declined as the number of links increased. • Study 2: Links got in the way of learning. • Study 3: Hypertext readers reported being confused and having difficulty following the text. Their comments about the reading were less detailed and less specific than the linear-text readers. Carr, N. (2011). The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. New York: Norton & Company, Inc.

15. To Summarize . . . • Interactivity, hyperlinking, searchability, multimedia, and an extraordinary volume of information can both support and hinder reading for comprehension. • The need for critical thinking is greater now than ever. • Effective use of the internet must be an important aspect of literacy itself to “support the broader, higher-level and more important aspects of literacy – critical thinking, judgment, problem-solving skills, and development of lifelong reading and thinking habits” (Samuels & Farstrup, 2011). • Assessing true reading comprehension skills must reach the top levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. • How can we encourage online reading comprehension to reach those top skills such as predicting, designing, arguing, and developing? Overbaugh, R. & Schultz, L. Bloom's Taxonomy. Old Dominion University. Retrieved from: http://ww2.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm

16. Support your Child(ren) in Reading for Comprehension Online • Help your kids stay on track • Show interest and encourage your child to talk to you about what they are doing online • Ask your child to teach you something new • Monitor! Watch for information overload symptoms • Budget your child’s time on the Internet Melton, B. & Shankle, S. (2007). What in the world are your kids doing online? New York: Broadway Books.

17. Support your Child(ren) in Reading for Comprehension Online • Google is not kid-friendly. See the handout for kid-friendly search engines that have age-appropriate information • Encourage your child to print out important articles • Outlaw copy and paste! Provide your child with paper and pencil and teach them how to take notes • Encourage your child to write or ask questions they have about their reading • Check that what they are reading is worth comprehending! See the handout on how to evaluate websites with your child when they are researching. (Melton & Shankle, 2007, p. 275)