- In this time of increased standards and seemingly limitless technologies, it is a challenge for educators to determine which technologies to use with our limited time and best prepare our students to not only read, but read online.
- Reading online is almost always to seek information. As more students have access to the internet, we must specifically teach students the skills to read online and bridge the gap between offline reading. The specific skills to teach students are: reading to locate information, reading to synthesize information, reading to evaluate information, and reading and writing to communicate information.
- In elementary classrooms, we can prepare beginning readers by introducing them to online technologies, teach students to teach each other, provide opportunities for online research, integrate online research with other research, engage students in collaborative online reading, teach students to critically evaluate sources, and use websites as a supportive text for reading.
Application to Instructional Strategies
Based on the information presented in this article, the best way to teach strategies to students that will be most beneficial and authentic is to integrate online reading sources into our reading curriculum. Showing students that the information they find online can be used as an additional reading source. During a unit on expository texts, using supplementary resources online would be a good way to integrate this into your reading curriculum.
Modeling online searches for information and then having students use these skills to research a topic of their choosing is an excellent strategy to teach research skills. Having students do research for a writing project, such as a biography, animal report, or feature article would be an ideal activity for this. A mini lesson that could be included during these writing units would be to teach students to evaluate the sources to see if they are reliable and accurate.
Collaborative blogging is an excellent way to have students teach each other, engage in collaborative online reading, and teaching both online reading and writing skills. Having students post their reading responses from independent reading on a class blog and having them respond and discuss with each other would be an appropriate way to teach these skills, while also bridging the gap between online and offline reading.
References
Leu, D.J., Forzani, E., Timbrell, N. & Maykel, C. (2015). Seeing the forest, not the trees: Essential technologies for literacy in the primary-grade and upper elementary-grade classroom. The Reading Teacher, 69(2), 139–145
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