New Literacies for Online Text Presented by Kelly Galbraith and Terri Lewis, IU 13

What do you do to make sense of text?  Read “Toward an Understanding of the New Literacies of Online Comprehension.” Do whatever you need to do to make sense of this text.  Share what you did to make sense of this text with your neighbor. What was common?

What do good readers do?  Set purpose  Activate background knowledge  Make predictions and inferences  Monitor comprehension  Ask questions  Visualize  Adjust reading rate  Re-read  Re-phrase/summarize  Evaluate Penn Literacy Network, 2012

Essential Questions  How does reading online text differ from reading offline text?  How can teachers increase their students’ comprehension of online text?

Online vs. Offline Reading  Record responses in Padlet.   For each entry, type “online” or “offline” instead of your name. Student Purposes for Reading OnlineOffline

New Literacies  Identifying Important Questions  Locating Information  Critically Evaluating Information  Synthesizing Information  Communicating Information

Locating Information  The work of the New Literacies Project out of the University of Connecticut has pinpointed 4 types of reading skills for locating information online: 1) Knowing how to use a search engine to locate information 2) Reading search engine results 3) Reading a web page to locate information that might be present there 4) Making an inference about where information is located by selecting a link at one site to find information at anther site

Search Activity  Try doing a google search for “differences between online and offline text”  Read your search results, and make a list of the criteria you are using to determine if the site is relevant or not  Compare your list with a partner.  What did you find?

Critically Evaluating Information  Understanding: Does it make sense to me?  Relevancy: Does it meet my needs?  Accuracy: Can I verify it with another reliable source?  Reliability: Can I trust it?  Bias: How does the author shape it? ~Coiro (2007)

Synthesizing Information Active Reading Intertextuality Synthesizing Online Text

Pros of Reading Online Text  Reading online can be a powerful experience for students.  Audio and video elements can help clarify concepts.  Picture quality can be striking.  The currency of information on the internet is not easily achieved through books.  Interactivity can spawn increased engagement. Oxley, 2013

“Whether they realize it or not, many people approach computers and tablets with a state of mind less conducive to learning than the one they bring to paper.” (Jabr, 2013)

Online text findings The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper vs. Screens (Jabr, 2013)  Inconsistent results  May prevent people from navigating long texts in an intuitive and satisfying way  May subtly inhibit reading comprehension  May drain more of our mental resources  May make it harder to remember what we read

If reading online texts simultaneously presents exciting opportunities an critical challenges, how do educators teach students to effectively read online? Oxley, 2013

What do good readers do?  Set purpose  Activate background knowledge  Make predictions and inferences  Monitor comprehension  Ask questions  Visualize  Adjust reading rate  Re-read  Re-phrase/summarize  Evaluate Penn Literacy Network, 2012

Short passage Complex text Limited frontloading Repeated readings Text-dependent questions Close Reading Annotation Frey and Fisher, 2013

Tools to promote active reading  Evidence Interpretation Chart  Scrible (or other online annotation tool)  Go to  Click on “Sign up (free)”  Follow directions to create an account

Digital Reading Poses Learning Challenges for Students (Herold, 2014) 

First Read- Read section 1 of the article to determine the main idea. What is the author telling the reader about digital reading? Scrible  Type the main idea on a post-it note Evidence Interpretation  Write the main idea on the top of the paper

Second Read- Re-read section 1 of the article to identify important and/or confusing information. Scrible  Highlight anything interesting or important in green and confusing in yellow.  Use the post-it note tool to explain why you highlighted what you did. Evidence Interpretation  Write anything interesting, important, or confusing on the “evidence” side of your chart.  Explain your thinking on the “interpretation” side of your chart.

Third Read- Does the research in this article corroborate the research in Jabr’s Scientific American article? Scrible  Answer the question on a post-it note.  Highlight evidence to support your thinking in pink. Evidence Interpretation  Answer the question on the “interpretation” side of your chart.  Write your evidence on the “evidence” side of your chart.

Contact Us! Kelly Galbraith IU 13 Literacy Consultant (717) Terri Lewis IU 13 Literacy Consultant (717)