Digital Readers: The Next Chapter in E-Book Reading and Response

Larson, Lotta C. 2010. Digital Readers: The Next Chapter in E-Book Reading and Response. The Reading Teacher 64, no. 1: 15-22.

"Traditional definitions of reading and writing are insufficient in today's world as today's students encounter and interact with new digital literacies" (Larson 2010, 16). Larson examines digital readers in this article not just as text in an electronic format, but as a reading tool with a plethora of subsequent tools with which to engage and encourage children to read. As far as my research project goes, this ties in perfectly with digital readers encouraging literacy in teenagers. It might be that these "tools" Larson describes are just the things to push kids in that direction.

Summary:

Background. Larson begins the article by citing several studies suggesting that interaction with text motivates children to read more, suggesting that the tools and option found in digital readers might then help to increase learning and literacy.

Purpose. The questions of this study are two fold. First, how digital readers can support children, and secondly what new avenues they offer.

Methodology. Using qualitative methodology, through field notes and interviews with students, parents, and the teacher, Larson observed two second grade girls as they used a kindle to read a book (Friendship According to Humphrey) and make notes and annotations.

Findings. Larson states that "digital reading devices with second-grade students promotes new literacies practices and extends connections between readers and text as engagement with and manipulation of text is made possible through electronic tools and features" (Larson 2010, 17).

The note taking tools showed responses that were spontaneous. The notes the girls took fell into five categories: understanding of the story, personal meaning making, questioning, answering, and text features and literary evaluation.

Other digital tools they used included adjusting the font size, using the built-in dictionary, and accessing the text-to-speech features. The last feature, text-to-speech enables the reader to listen to the words, which might be helpful for any number of reasons, in this case helping the girls to pronounce certain words.

One of the girls, Amy, who didn't like to read, found it exciting to read on the kindle and became an avid reader. The other girl, Winnie, took notes that showed the personality of the normally quiet girl. Both girls thought it was "cool" to read on a kindle.

Conclusions. Larson concludes that there are fantastic learning capabilities with digital readers that can prove beneficial in the classroom, particularly through the use of the features. She does emphasize the importance of further studies in this area, recognizing the small size of this case study.

My Reflections:

This is a fascinating case study which encourages me in my mission to see if digital readers can indeed improve literacy. The age group is a little young for what I was looking into—teenagers instead of children. Younger children might be easier to manipulate, so to speak, into reading on digital devices; it's a good idea to start them down that path of literacy while they're young. Trying to encourage teenagers might require some different motivations. The "coolness" factor might help. Is it too late to try to encourage literacy in a young adult? I don't know. I hope not.

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