Educators are chronically myopic by choice. We also tend to favor the rear view mirror. Let us enlarge our vision to be forward thinking and see learning to read from multiple formats as our desired goal for all children.
As a retired principal, curriculum director, superintendent and now a school board member, I am compulsively interested in the research and literature about reading instruction. However, as a grandfather, my interest has geometrically increased. How should my grandchildren, representing all children, learn to read in the digital age? A myopic and lover or the rear view mirror says, “Well, just like we all were taught to read. Reading does not change with the flipping of a calendar.”
I commend the following article for all grandfather’s reading (others also may choose to read it). My commendation results from the author’s examination of non-linear reading. I truly understand the bias of traditionalists who prefer to teach reading through print material that is unattached to other references and extraneous leads for peripheral inquiry. Reading and intellectually considering print on paper appeals to my nostalgic and romantic leanings about reading, also. Would a lover of books want to read any other way?
That said, a reading instructor who attempts to avoid the reality of our digital and technological age is at the front of the line for Luddite-of-the-Year.
“Ahem! And, what should we do when children are distracted by the links to related media, other resources, and reader comments about the digital material they encounter in online reading material?”, my myopic cronies ask.
They are correct in pointing to the fact that by design unilinear print material is free of “Y” intersections. A “Y” intersection allows the reader to stay with the text at hand or take off down a new tangent of interest suggested by the text. The new tangent may be a hyperlink to another text(s)or embedded media. And, each new tangent may have its own links and media references. The fact that printed reading material does not contain any these lines of interaction is what makes teaching for an understanding of the assigned text a preferred instructional modus operendi for the myopic. Dealing with the text only is a cleaner and simpler design for teaching and learning.
Being unilinear, however, does not mean that reading a complex printed text is easy. A page in an economics text, passages of Shakespeare, a proof of a geometry problem, and the Periodic Table each requires the reader to call upon a plethora of prior knowledge, use many higher order thinking skills, and pose a variety of hypotheses to be checked out through reading. Reading unilinear texts may lead the reader to have several printed resources spread out before her. The reader makes the linkages between resources. Sound familiar and traditional – it is. And, there is a definite need and place for students to learn with unilinear reading material.
The world, however, has become poly-directional and children today are a true reflection of their world. In almost every aspect of their daily living, children are confronted with a barrage of informational segments and every segment contains a plethora of “Y” intersections. Parallel to the constant flood of information is the compacting of their attention span. At the earliest age, children are aware that if their television show doesn’t grab their attention in the first few minutes, they have dozens of opportunities immediately available – just click up or down on the remote. Children make hundreds of decisions every hour about what the see and hear and do. And, their brains are evolving to allow them to live like this. Research indicates that the attention span for adults in 2000 was twenty seconds; by 2015 the adult attention span was eight seconds. And, eight seconds be generous for a digital-aged child who is growing up in a world of increasing and instant information bursts.
It seems very logical then to instruct children to read within the informational environment in which they must live and thrive. We must teach to find meaning quickly by developing their sight vocabulary of contemporary and technical words. We must teach them to compare and contrast ideas by looking at the supporting facts. Often those facts and supporting evidence will be found in the links and media embedded in what they read. We must teach them when to abandon intersections in their information because a pathway does not illuminate their study. Or, to note the pathway for future reading based upon the merits of its information. We must teach them to discern relevance and significance. We must teach them how to focus, to endure beyond their usual attention span when the hard work of reading for comprehension and interpretation of meaning is essential to their intellectual growth. We, educators, can do this.
As the adults in the room, children cannot afford nor abide our myopic wish to teach reading as we were taught to read decades ago. We owe them the honesty of teaching them to read and learn using the informational presentation of their and our world today.