Preview the Article

Follow the steps below to preview the article “The Enduring Power of Print for Learning in a Digital World.” Ideally, you should print the article and write your responses in the margins of the printed copy. To read more about previewing, visit the chapter on previewing a reading.

1. Read the title. What does it make you think about? What do you think the article is about? What questions do you have? Record your predictions and questions on the printed copy of the article next to the title.
2. Do you prefer reading digital texts or print texts? Why? Record your thoughts on the printed copy of the article.
3. Read the first two or three paragraphs. What additional predictions do you now have about the article? What additional questions do you have? Record them on the printed copy of the article.
4. Scan the article and notice the headings (e.g. Placing print in perspective) and subheadings (e.g. 1. Consider the purpose) within the article. What additional thoughts or questions do these raise? Record them on the printed copy of the article.
5. Scan the bolded and underlined vocabulary in the article.  If there are any words that you do not know well, look them up in a print or online dictionary and write some notes about their meanings on the printed copy of the article. Keep in mind that some words have multiple meanings. For example, the word medium is used in paragraph 8 and again later in the article; however, it does not refer to a size (e.g. small, medium, large). You may need to read the sentence containing the word to understand the word’s usage.
6. Based on your preview of the article, what do you think is the central point of the article? (Don’t worry if you are not sure. This is a prediction or guess – you do not have to be correct as long as you are engaging your brain.) Record your prediction on the printed copy of the article.
7. Based on your preview, do you predict that the article is narrative, expository, or argumentative?

Read Interactively

Now, read the article using the guidelines from the chapter on reading interactively. As you read, follow these steps to engage with the text.

1. Pause to confirm or revise your predictions and to answer the questions you posed while previewing the article. Write down those revised predictions and responses to the questions as you read. If you cannot find the answers to your questions, save them for further research and discussion.
2. Pause at other points to check for understanding of what you just read. Can you explain key ideas in your own words yet? If not, reread to clarify. Ideas that come later in a text build on the previous ones. Therefore, it makes no sense to keep reading if you did not understand something or if you became distracted. Anyone can become distracted while reading, so don’t hesitate to use the strategy of rereading when necessary.
3. Pay attention to any vocabulary words that are confusing. Look up the words in a dictionary if they are interfering with your understanding, or mark them to return to later.
4. Record any opinions or reactions you have to the reading in the margins of the article.
5. Write down any further questions that develop as you read.

The enduring power of print for learning in a digital world

Patricia A. Alexander, University of Maryland and Lauren M. Singer Trakhman, University of Maryland

October 3, 2017

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¹ Today’s students see themselves as digital natives, the first generation to grow up surrounded by technology like smartphones, tablets and e-readers.

² Teachers, parents and policymakers certainly acknowledge the growing influence of technology and have responded in kind. We’ve seen more investment in classroom technologies, with students now equipped with school-issued iPads and access to e-textbooks. In 2009, California passed a law requiring that all college textbooks be available in electronic form by 2020; in 2011, Florida lawmakers passed legislation requiring public schools to convert their textbooks to digital versions.

³ Given this trend, teachers, students, parents and policymakers might assume that students’ familiarity and preference for technology translates into better learning outcomes. But we’ve found that’s not necessarily true.

⁴ As researchers in learning and text comprehension, our recent work has focused on the differences between reading print and digital media. While new forms of classroom technology like digital textbooks are more accessible and portable, it would be wrong to assume that students will automatically be better served by digital reading simply because they prefer it.

Speed – at a cost

⁵ Our work has revealed a significant discrepancy. Students said they preferred and performed better when reading on screens. But their actual performance tended to suffer.

⁶ For example, from our review of research done since 1992, we found that students were able to better comprehend information in print for texts that were more than a page in length. This appears to be related to the disruptive effect that scrolling has on comprehension. We were also surprised to learn that few researchers tested different levels of comprehension or documented reading time in their studies of printed and digital texts.

⁷ To explore these patterns further, we conducted three studies that explored college students’ ability to comprehend information on paper and from screens.

⁸ Students first rated their medium preferences. After reading two passages, one online and one in print, these students then completed three tasks: Describe the main idea of the texts, list key points covered in the readings and provide any other relevant content they could recall. When they were done, we asked them to judge their comprehension performance.

⁹ Across the studies, the texts differed in length, and we collected varying data (e.g., reading time). Nonetheless, some key findings emerged that shed new light on the differences between reading printed and digital content:

• Students overwhelmingly preferred to read digitally.
• Reading was significantly faster online than in print.
• Students judged their comprehension as better online than in print.
• Paradoxically, overall comprehension was better for print versus
  digital reading.
• The medium didn’t matter for general questions (like understanding the main idea of the text).
• But when it came to specific questions, comprehension was significantly better when participants read printed texts.

Placing print in perspective

¹⁰ From these findings, there are some lessons that can be conveyed to policymakers, teachers, parents and students about print’s place in an increasingly digital world.

1. Consider the purpose

¹¹ We all read for many reasons. Sometimes we’re looking for an answer to a very specific question. Other times, we want to browse a newspaper for today’s headlines.

¹² As we’re about to pick up an article or text in a printed or digital format, we should keep in mind why we’re reading. There’s likely to be a difference in which medium works best for which purpose.

¹³ In other words, there’s no “one medium fits all” approach.

2. Analyze the task

¹⁴ One of the most consistent findings from our research is that, for some tasks, medium doesn’t seem to matter. If all students are being asked to do is to understand and remember the big idea or gist of what they’re reading, there’s no benefit in selecting one medium over another.

¹⁵ But when the reading assignment demands more engagement or deeper comprehension, students may be better off reading print. Teachers could make students aware that their ability to comprehend the assignment may be influenced by the medium they choose. This awareness could lessen the discrepancy we witnessed in students’ judgments of their performance vis-à-vis how they actually performed.

3. Slow it down

¹⁶ In our third experiment, we were able to create meaningful profiles of college students based on the way they read and comprehended from printed and digital texts.

¹⁷ Among those profiles, we found a select group of undergraduates who actually comprehended better when they moved from print to digital. What distinguished this atypical group was that they actually read slower when the text was on the computer than when it was in a book. In other words, they didn’t take the ease of engaging with the digital text for granted. Using this select group as a model, students could possibly be taught or directed to fight the tendency to glide through online texts.

4. Something that can’t be measured

¹⁸ There may be economic and environmental reasons to go paperless. But there’s clearly something important that would be lost with print’s demise.

¹⁹ In our academic lives, we have books and articles that we regularly return to. The dog-eared pages of these treasured readings contain lines of text etched with questions or reflections. It’s difficult to imagine a similar level of engagement with a digital text. There should probably always be a place for print in students’ academic lives – no matter how technologically savvy they become.

²⁰ Of course, we realize that the march toward online reading will continue unabated. And we don’t want to downplay the many conveniences of online texts, which include breadth and speed of access.

²¹ Rather, our goal is simply to remind today’s digital natives – and those who shape their educational experiences – that there are significant costs and consequences to discounting the printed word’s value for learning and academic development.

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Patricia A. Alexander, Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland and Lauren M. Singer Trakhman, Ph.D. Candidate in Educational Psychology, University of Maryland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Reflect

After reading the article, use the following questions to reflect on the content of the article and your reading process. See the chapter about reflecting for a discussion of why this is a crucial step.

1. Try to paraphrase the main idea in a sentence. This may be challenging because you have read the article only once. If you are struggling, do your best. You can refine this when you reread and summarize the article.
2. Is the article primarily narrative, expository, or argumentative? What is the purpose of the article? In other words, why do you think the author wrote it?
3. Which predictions were accurate, and which did you have to revise?
4. As you previewed the article, you wrote questions.  What questions remain unanswered after reading the article?
5. What else do you want to know about the article or topic of the reading? Write down any additional questions.
6. How did previewing the article help you to understand and engage with the text while reading?
7. Where did you struggle to understand something in the text, and how did you work through it?
8. What, if anything, could you have done differently to improve your reading process?

Summarize

Complete a summary of the article by following these steps. Make sure you have read the chapters about Reading to Summarize before proceeding with the summary.

1. Reread the article and complete the Summary Notes. See Preparing to Summarize for a review of this topic and an example.
2. Then, use your Summary Notes to write a one-paragraph summary of the article. See Writing a Summary for a review of this topic and an example. Make sure that you include in-text citations and the Work Cited.
3. Use the self-assessment/peer review questions from Evaluating a Summary to self-assess your summary or invite a peer to provide feedback.
4. Use the self-assessment or peer feedback to make changes to your summary.

Make sure you are comfortable with your summary before advancing to the response. If you misunderstand something in the article, then your response may be skewed based on that misunderstanding.

Respond

Write a response to the article by following these steps. Make sure you have read the chapters about Reading to Respond before proceeding with the summary.

1. Use the Response Questions from Preparing to Respond to brainstorm possible ideas for your response. See the example in that same chapter.
2. Read over your replies to the Response Questions. Choose one idea to write about in your response. Express that idea in a topic sentence. See Writing a Topic Sentence for a Response for examples. Ask a peer for feedback on your topic sentence.
3. Brainstorm about possible support you could use in your response. See Generating Support for a Response for examples.
4. Use your topic sentence and ideas from the list of support to write a one-paragraph response. See Writing a Response writing guidelines and examples. Make sure that you include the Work Cited and in-text citations for any quotes or specific ideas from the article.
5. Use the self-assessment/peer review questions from Evaluating a Response to evaluate your response or have a peer provide feedback.
6. Use the self-assessment or peer feedback to make improvements to your response.

Extend: Connect and Reflect

Patricia A. Alexander and Lauren M. Singer Trakhman discuss differences in reading print and digital/online texts. Keep a log of the kinds of reading you do– online or print– for a week. What texts do you read and in which format? Reflect on your experience. How much do you tend to do of each type of reading? Which reading experiences were the most engaging? Which reading experiences were most successful? What do your observations of your experiences teach you about online and print reading?