Technology to learn and teach reading skills

TELL-based reading lesson

Technology allows students to do the during-reading activitites at their own pace

Teacher and students access and share evidence of comprehension

Online reading resources

Scrible (browser plug-in)

Digital interactive fiction and non-fiction

Gee (2007) indicates the benefits for L1 reading

Nevill et al. (2009) ponts out the benefits for L2 reading skills

Online newspapers, magazines, journals, courses, etc.

Digital texts features which encourage reader-text interaction

r

However, these multimodal characteristics may result in reading comprehension difficulties.

Images

Embedded video and sound files

Links to other websites

Offer non-linear reading sequence

Readers may decide the course of the story (digital fiction)

Reading can be combined with listening, speaking, and writing

Reading and writing have differences, but similarities as well (Hudson, 2007)

Similarities

Readers and writers try to create an internal text by building up propositions and connecting them with their previous knowledge

Readers and writers "talk" through a text

Reading helps people become good writers (Lenski and Johns, 2007; Crowhurst, 1991)

Graphic organizers (writing) help discover the inner structure of a text

Mind maps or entity relationship charts

Show relationships between the information inside texts

Contrasting, comparing, describing, classifying, caus and effect, etc.

Examples: EnchantedLearning, Inspiration, and Kidspiration

Springboard from which further writing tasks can be done

Provide wider and broader perspectives on texts compared to what students gain from just rereading them (Fitzgerald and Shanahan, 2000)

Conventional reading lesson

Top-down and bottom-up processing levels

Bottom-up is necessary to get a clearer view of what the text is about (Harmer, 2007)

Global understanding of the text is also crucial to get an understanding of the text details (Harmer, 2007)

Pre-, during-, and post-reading activities (Hedge, 2000)

During-reading activities are usually directed by the teacher

Teachers may get a ver vague idea as to how students carry out during-reading tasks

Teachers may not know difficulties students face when doing during-reading tasks

There may be some group feedback in class

A few students are able to share their answers