Convincing Students to Read in a Digital World

Linked to teaching independence is convincing students the necessary skill of reading for meaning. This is quite a challenge in our digital world. Students' brains seem to be wired differently in the digital world. Merilee Sprenger in her book, "Brain-based Teaching in the Digital Age" supports this idea by stating, "when they (student) scan a Website, their approach is keyed into visuals. They are accustomed to icons and other visuals and know they will provide infromation they need. Baby boomers, on the other hand, approach a Website the way they were taught to read-- begin in the upper left and look at the text." (p.12) Students thrive on generalizations and gather meaning quickly through visual stimuli in the way of pictures and icons. Reading print takes too much time to comprehend and students' brains want to understand things at a super fast pace. This idea is illustrated very well in the 1:1 computing classroom where instruction is designed step by step in Moodle and where, if students read for understanding, they can complete tasks independently and at their own pace and ability level. (Tasks include differentiated learning paths so that all students can meet success.) It is very frustrating as a teacher, when you know that you have designed instruction that will give students the opportunity to become independent learners, that students do not take the time to read what is written and will ask you to explain each detail of an activity. It is like direct instruction is a drug that students are craving and they cannot fathom the idea of taking charge of their own learning and completing an activity where a teacher does not guide them each step of the way. After reading Sprenger's book, I've come to realize that maybe it's not the students fault that they are not reading the information in the way that I'm expecting them. Possibly, when students appear to crave direct instruction what they really require is information presented in a myriad of ways-- auditory and visual. It is no longer good enough to be so text based. Maybe my expectations need to change and I need to take into account that students today learn very differently than the way I learned and may not need to start at the beginning and read every detail to get the information they need. (Sprenger p.13) Wow!! What an eye opener!!