Is Online Reading Rewiring Our Brains?
This Washington Post article was highlighted by the California Reading Association (The California Reader) on their Facebook page. I have always been a reader, picking up a wide range of texts on any subject that captures my attention. When I moved from Michigan to California several years ago, I cut my library by more than half, visiting used book stores, holding yard sales, and giving books away. In our home we have more than fifty linear feet of shelving; most of the books on those shelves are mine. I have boxes of books in our garage that I have no room for, and I have assembled a classroom library consisting of over 300 titles, most of which I also don’t have shelf space for in my classroom. Additionally, I have a Kindle library of more than 50 titles, as well as a dozen or so titles in other digital formats.
I spend a chunk of time everyday perusing diverse websites for news, social media, educational resources, professional development and so on. My experience is described in this article, as I jump from site to site, from post to post, from paragraph to paragraph, reading in whole or reading a little here and a bit there.
As an educator in a district that has committed to 1:1 technology in the classroom, and who will be introducing his own 5th grade class to 1:1 (Chromebook) in the fall, this article caught my eye and raised the question for me, “How do I help my students read differently 1) in different media? and 2) for different purposes?
My grade level team will need to explore with our students the similarities and the differences between printed and digital text. Many of them are very familiar with social media, including “IM” and “text.” Much has been written already about how social media writing “shortcuts” are affecting academic writing. Students, and their teachers, will need to continually monitor and align their styles of writing and reading with the function and purpose of the text before them.
I’d be interested in hearing from others who have wrestled or are wrestling with this issue in their classrooms.