Effects of Digital Technologies on Reading Attitudes and Habits

• In Event: Digital Technologies and Learning to Read: Possible Effects on Communicative, Cognitive, and Attitudinal Processes

Abstract

There has been extensive and heated debate about the role and impact of reading on student habits, attitudes and achievement. The release of the U.S. National Reading Panel report, Teaching Children to Read, in 2000 generated strong assertions about the lack of rigorous research on the topic along with competing claims about the importance of independent reading. The release, in 2007, of the National Endowment of the Arts report To Read or Not to Read reignited this debate while underlining a sense of unease about the potential negative impact of digital technologies, both within and outside the classroom, on student reading behaviors. This presentation will explore these topics with specific reference to the potentials - positive and negative of technologies, including: computer game systems, the world wide web, and e-reader devices such as the Kindle, Nook and iPad. Does this rapidly evolving and increasingly common type of technology encourage or hinder reading behaviors and habits? What light does existing research shed and what future research should be undertaken to enhance our understanding and influence related educational practice?

Attitudes and habits toward learning in general, and toward learning to reading in particular, develop early and tend to remain stable (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998; Westberg, Lonigan, & Molfese, 2006). Developing a positive attitude and habits toward reading may be absolutely critical, because it affects the life-course reading trajectory. Unfortunately the research on new digital technologies on the development of reading attitudes and habits come mainly from television and much more needs to be learned about possible changes.
In sum, access to new digital technologies may well be additive to traditional reading attitudes and habits or just the oppose. The impact is largely unknown except for television research. This presentation will explore what are possible changes in attitudes and habits from new digital technologies on reading.

Author

• Alan E. Farstrup, Retired