Recently I have been involved in several conversations with educators about how to use iPads in the classroom for reading purposes. The content of our conversations has covered topics such as when teachers should use iPads for reading purposes in the classroom, what types of texts students should be reading, and what professional development educators need to know about reading digital text. For the purpose of this column, I will summarize a few key points about the topic and raise some related questions. It is my hope that these questions may stimulate further conversations among educators who are using iPads for reading purposes in their classrooms.

First, we know that reading digital text involves a nonlinear reading process, as reported, for example, in work by Jennifer Roswell & Anne Burke and by Julie Coiro. For that reason, how students read is as important as what they read. Research from Maryanne Wolf, for example, shows that reading digital text engages the brain in critical ways. Proponents and critics of the iPad have used the following messages to guide conversations on the topic:

Benefits

• Learners spend more time reading
• Learners engage more with texts
• Scrolling, scanning, and hyperlinks promote improved comprehension of text

Challenges

• Learners engage in more skimming vs. deep reading of text
• Multitasking distractions prevent cognitive focus
• Scrolling, scanning, and hyperlinks interact with recall and learning of information

Second, integrating the use of iPads into the classroom creates many opportunities to engage students with meaningful and critical reading practices. On one hand, iPad applications can be beneficial to students’ reading experiences. On the other hand, teachers need to instruct students how to use applications and device features to read different types of texts while also equipping them with strategies for reading and comprehending digital texts (e.g., short and long pieces of fiction and nonfiction texts, graphic images, maps). As educators, having targeted conversations on digital reading, its purpose and uses in the classroom (e.g., independent reading, research, close reading, discipline-specific reading), and ways to promote deep reading of digital texts for each purpose is important.

As part of these conversations, the following questions warrant further research and invite educators to think about the learning and literacy demands of reading digital text and how e-readers can be used for a range of reading purposes:

•  Does leisure reading of digital text require different reading behaviors and practices compared with reading digital text for academic purposes?
• When is skimming the text for keywords appropriate and when is it not?
• What types of digital reading require a lot of scrolling and scanning (e.g., maps, interactive graphics, timelines) rather than close reading?
•  What strategies do students need to learn to read long pieces of digital text?
•  What behaviors support reading stamina of digital text? How might these differt from those that support stamina for reading printed text?
•  What types of experiences provide students opportunities to use digital devices effectively to practice close reading of complex digital text?
•  How can educators collaborate with publishers to help them develop more interactive fiction and nonfiction digital texts?
•  What else do we need to learn about the adaptive behaviors of students who read digital text with e-readers?

Reading is a personal, social, and cultural act. In her book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf explains how technological advancements have been changing the reading process. Using e-readers to read digital text in K–12 learning environments is here to stay. As more students use e-readers to read digital text, we need to learn more about how individuals interact with the devices to read and learn, think about the structure and demands of each type of digital text place on the reader, and provide instruction to facilitate reading comprehension of digital text.

Vicky Zygouris-Coe, PhD, is a professor of Reading Education at the University of Central Florida.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).