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Erin Mills is a secondary history teacher at the Uruguayan American school in Montevideo, Uruguay. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and in Spanish before pursuing a Master of Education. She is a doctoral student of the Learning Design and Leadership Program at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana (UIUC). Her research interests focus on new literacies of the internet.

The increasing prevalence of online reading prompted this review of the literature. Firstly, it sets out to determine what the research has revealed about reading comprehension as a print-based endeavor. Reader, text, and activity are identified as integral elements to the reading process and make up the developmental heuristic of the RAND reading study group for organizing research on reading. These elements also take place within a sociocultural context and affect the meaning that is made. Using the RAND reading study group heuristic, the literature review then explores the theories and findings that have emerged to explain the impact of the internet on reading and thus contribute to understandings of literacy in digital contexts to inform pedagogical practice. Ultimately, the literature shows that reading online is qualitatively different from reading print-based texts: texts are multimodal, and readers are more agentic as they have more ways to enter the text, act as coauthors and “exert” their agency on technology, and shape it for their own practices.

digital literacy, reading comprehension, reading instruction, multimodality, new literacies, learning design and leadership, P-12

In a 2018 survey, the PEW research center found that 45% of youth (ages 13-17) are online “on a near-constant basis” (Anderson, 2018, para. 3). Anderson (2018) reports that this statistic is almost double what it was four years prior, and that smart phone access is nearly “ubiquitous”, 95% of teens have access to one. A separate survey by the PEW research center elaborated on the phone use, noting that 83% use it to “learn new things” (Schaeffer, 2019). Considering these studies, students come to classrooms with substantial experience in reading on the internet.

The increasing prevalence of online reading amongst adolescents prompted this review of the literature. It therefore investigates what is known about reading for meaning with print-based texts. In particular, the literature review examines what the research says about the process of reading comprehension. The review then examines the theories that have emerged to explain the impact of the internet on the reading process while also investigating what scholars have found on the pedagogical implications of online reading.

In the literature on reading print-based texts and reading online, several terms emerge that need clarification:

Literacy – According to Kress (2003) “the term which refers to (the knowledge of) the use of the resource of writing” (p. 18).

Digital literacy – Knobel and Lankshear (2006) reviewed the literature on the definitions of digital literacy and found that the “mainstream” definitions often define the term in the following ways: first as an “It”, something to be acquired that will enable students to face the challenges of the twenty-first century; second, as something associated with “epistemic engagement” with the information so that students who learn digital literacy will be equipped with the skills to interact with the information and determine what is credible. However, Street (1984) claims that viewing digital literacy as a skill is equivalent to the “autonomous model” and in contrast with what sociocultural theorists see literacy as, a social practice. Knobel and Lankshear (2006) stress that viewing digital literacy as a social practice does not mean rejecting the idea that skills play a role, only “that these ‘skills’ and ‘techniques’ take on very different forms when embedded in different social practices involving different purposes and where different kinds of meaning are at stake” (p. 16). For Knobel and Lankshear (2006), reading involves decoding but decoding alone does not make meaning, “reading and writing are always reading and writing with meaning” (p. 16). Hence, Knobel and Lankshear conclude that as far as the term digital literacy, “we should think of ‘digital literacy’ as shorthand for the myriad social practices and conceptions of engaging in meaning making mediated by texts that are produced, received, distributed, exchanged etc., via digital codification. Digital literacy is really digital literacies” (p. 17).

Literacies – In their research, Kalantzis et al. (2016) have found that the contemporary communication environment necessitates students learn more than “alphabetical communication”, that they instead learn literacies, or the many forms of literacy “not only knowledge of formal conventions across a range of modes, but also effective communication in diverse settings and the use of tools of text design that are multimodal, rather than a reliance on the written mode alone” (p. 5). Street (2016) conceptualized literacy as a social practice, not as a skill, and therefore, Street noted that a range of different literacies can be observed, “religious literacies, many different occupational literacies, family/domestic literacies, bureaucratic literacies, academic literacies, etc.” (p. 339)

Modes – In their theory of multimodality, Kalantzis et al. (2016) identify the following modes of meaning: “written, visual spatial, tactile, gestural, audio and oral” (p. 229). Kress (2010) adds color and layout to this list of modes, emphasizing that layout communicates to the reader where to focus their attention, in other words, it engages the reader's attention and can even encourage a particular path of reading. Kress’s (2003) social semiotic theory of multimodality understands reading as a process of interpreting modes, or communicative signs. Thus, in Kress’s words, “Equally, in reading, we need now to gather meaning from all the modes which are co-present in a text” (p. 27).

Interpretation – “The sense one person makes of a message communicated by another person” (Kalantzis et al., 2016, p.215). Kress (2003), in his theory of social semiotics explains interpretation in reading as “the making of a new sign from the sign that I have received as a signifier. I fill that signifier with my meaning” (p. 29).

Gough and Tunmer (1986) developed the Simple View of Reading theory which posits there are two key elements that lead to successful reading comprehension: decoding and linguistic comprehension. Gough and Tunmer support this assertion with evidence from their empirical formula, R=D x C, where R refers to reading, C refers to linguistic comprehension, and D refers to decoding. Gough and Tunmer (1986) applied their formula to known reading disabilities to demonstrate its function in predicting reading ability. Nation (2019) who set out to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the simple view of reading theory using longitudinal data from over two hundred five-year-olds starting primary school, clarifies linguistic comprehension as referring to one’s ability to recognize language structures. Nation’s data attests the strength of the theory in understanding that the two elements, decoding and linguistic comprehension, are necessary and interact when comprehension takes place. Chiu (2018) found the simple view of reading theory correctly predicted the reading outcomes for third grade reading comprehension. Lonigan et al. (2018) expanded these findings to fifth grade. Additionally, the findings of Catts et al. (2006) indicated the applicability of the simple view of reading theory for identifying dyslexia in children.

Catts (2018), however, makes two important claims about the limitations of the simple view of reading theory based on the existing literature. The first claim Catts makes is that linguistic comprehension does not address “the problems (that) go beyond oral language and include difficulties in working memory, inference, and world knowledge” (p. 318). The second claim Catts makes is that research in the simple view of reading theory often presents decoding and comprehension in “comparable manners” (p. 319). Catts argues that such a comparison is misleading, as it leads to viewing comprehension as a “single thing” to be tested for rather than addressing the “multi-dimensional nature of comprehension” (p. 321). Francis et al. (2018) conducted a longitudinal study on reading comprehension with middle school students that included variation across texts and within readers. Their findings led them to expand the simple view of reading theory to what they call the Complete View of Reading theory, asserting that their model “illustrates that readers develop differently and approach the reading task differently, showing differential impact of text features on their fluency. To be complete, a model of reading must be able to reflect this heterogeneity at the person and passage level” (p. 274). However, Snow (2018), having reviewed the comprehension outcomes of the study by Chiu (2018) under the simple view of reading theory, as well as the study by Francis et al. (2018) under the complete view of reading theory, cites limitations. Snow found that both the simple view of reading theory and the complete view of reading theory are successful at determining interventions for emergent or struggling readers on simple comprehension tasks, but not for the kinds of reading expected in the upper grades.

In earlier work, Snow (2010) also highlights that the simple view of reading theory “underemphasizes the role of background knowledge and motivation” (p.416). Anderson and Pearson’s (1984) theory of schemata, “knowledge already stored in memory” (p.255) attempts to explain the importance of background knowledge in text comprehension, particularly the aspect of comprehension that involves interpreting and learning. According to Anderson and Pearson’s theory, the reader activates schemata as concepts emerge in the text. The researchers in turn posit that these schemata then help the reader make inferences or predictions. Pressley and Afflerbach (1995) whose extensive review of the literature using student think-alouds, consistently showed that schema theory indeed was activated often. More recently, An (2013) reviewed the different theories of schema theory and concluded its importance in understanding comprehension as an interactive process between reader and text stating, “Schema theory guides readers as they make sense of new experiences and also enables them to make predictions about what they might expect to experience in a given context” (p. 134). Schema theory has been used to analyze the teaching of reading to English as a foreign language and English as a second language students (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983). Additionally, Shen (2008) explored how it can help create deeper understandings in second language reading and Ahmed (2017) looked at how it can help explain the ways students interpret texts across cultural and temporal spaces. Guthrie et al. (2004) detected increased engagement when working with the strategy of increasing background knowledge of students in grades three and five.

Working with middle school students in grade seven, Guthrie and Klauda (2014) explored the role of engagement and motivation in comprehension. The study used standardized tests to measure comprehension as well as experimenter designed comprehension. Engagement was defined as “active text interaction in which students are seeking conceptual understanding of complex topics” and motivation as “intrinsic motivation, value, and perceived competence” (p. 388). Their study concluded that engagement and motivation impacted comprehension positively and it extended the findings of authors such as Chapman and Tunmer (1995) who found that self-efficacy played a role in comprehension of primary students.

The RAND reading study group (2002), an organization given the task of creating a framework for literacy research to address current issues, developed a heuristic for organizing reading research around elements of the reading process (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Heuristic

RAND reading study group, 2002

The reader and text are addressed in the aforementioned models of comprehension, as they are in the work of Anderson et al. (1985) in the National Report on Reading which surveyed, interpreted and synthesized the published research on reading at the time. However, in terms of the heuristic of the RAND reading study group (2002), Snow (2018) argues that, at least within the research of the simple and the complete view of reading, the activity “continues to be ignored” (p. 314). The activity is defined as the “purpose” and “outcome” (RAND reading study group). Snow reminds readers that the activity changes from primary to upper grades stating,

Older students and adults are expected to read critically—sifting plausible from outlandish claims, recognizing the difference between factual reports and parodies or satires, and using information about author and source as well as information internal to the text in deciding what to learn and whether to modify preexistent knowledge stores. Older readers are thus expected to make inferences, not just about the text, but also about the author’s point of view, and to use those inferences as input to their comprehension processing. (p.215)

Thus, Snow insists that research in reading comprehension in secondary contexts needs to account for the more complex nature of the reading outcome.

As seen in Figure 1, the RAND reading study group (2002) also posits the three elements take place within a sociocultural context and can affect the meaning that is made. Citing Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory, the RAND reading study group explains differences in meaning as attributable to the ways in which literacy is learned. “According to Vygotsky (1978), with the guidance and support of an expert, children are able to perform tasks that are slightly beyond their own independent knowledge and capability” (p. 16), and that “differences among readers can, to some extent be traced to the varying sociocultural environments in which children live and learn to read” (xvi). Variation in meaning was demonstrated by Pressley and Afflerbach’s (1995) report on the literature of think-alouds which showed different interpretations of texts. Working within a sociocultural lens, Reynolds and Goodwin (2016) examined the interactions of adolescent students working with texts above their grade level reading comprehension. They found that scaffolding interactions between the teacher and the student were effective for struggling readers comprehending more complex texts that were seen as beyond their capability independently.

Street and Besnier (1994) critically examine the thinking on the ability to read and write, or what they term “literacy”, and form the conclusion that it is a “construct” of the socio-cultural and claim it cannot be divorced from the “social, political and historical forces which shape it” (p. 533). As evidence, the researchers cite the Vai of Liberia who learn different types of literacies: Vai, Koranic and English. Street and Besnier compare all three and demonstrate that the way the literacies are taught and used “shape the individual’s cognitive makeup” (p. 56), so that those Vai who learn Koranic literacy for example, do well on recall comprehension tests which Street and Bresnier argue “is a reflection of the importance of memory work in Koranic schools” (p. 56). Whereas the Vai who are literate in English, and also attend schools modeled after the West, the researchers observe, “do well on tests that resemble school activities, like syllogisms” (p. 56). Understanding literacy as a construct of the socio-cultural is what Street (1984) calls an ideological model of literacy, it views the ability to read and write as a social practice and is based on findings from extensive ethnographic work in Iran which revealed that literacy had different uses and meanings. Knobel and Lankshear (2006) point out that this view of literacy frames literacy not as “a function of” (p.16) comprehension, but rather as “a function of social practice, social context, and discourse” (p.16). Street’s (2016) investigations of the ethnographic literature on reading support this view of literacy. In fact, the investigations led Street to identifying “literacy families” that manifest the “many and varied users and contexts of literacy” (p. 336). Street observes that these literacy families can be “religious literacies, many different occupational literacies, family/domestic literacies, bureaucratic literacies, academic literacies, etc.” (p. 339). Street also cites pedagogical implications of these findings: there often exists a gap between the academic literacies of school and the “everyday” literacies.

Using sociocultural theories to guide their work, Arya and Maul (2021) investigated the role of science discovery narratives in increasing engagement in reading comprehension. Arya and Maul hypothesized that scientific narratives that demonstrate the situated nature of knowledge would increase middle school reading engagement. Their qualitative field work proved their hypothesis correct and demonstrated the necessity of incorporating sociocultural perspectives into the curriculum. Frankel et al. (2021) also grounded their research in sociocultural theories. They performed a meta-analysis of the qualitative work done in secondary reading intervention classes. Their work found that “[y]outh revealed multifaceted and dynamic literacy identities, histories, and abilities, and a keen understanding of the kinds of instruction that they valued” (p. 49), and that these then mediated the students’ experiences in the classes.

Snow (2010) analyzes the RAND reading study group’s (2002) elements of the reading process: text, reader, activity to reveal the complexities of defining what constitutes reading comprehension. Below is an excerpt from the analysis,

Consider a candidate text that might be found in a first grade reader:

Alex and Ali ran to the swings and jumped on.

What constitutes comprehension for this text? At a minimum, a mental representation of two individuals moving quickly toward and using some playground equipment should be conjured up, but is the inference that Alex and Ali are probably children part of the comprehension process or does that go beyond basic comprehension? Is it required that the comprehender assign genders to Alex and Ali or that gender assignment be postponed, recognizing that Alex could be short for either Alexandra or Alexander” (p. 413).

Snow’s analysis leads her to extend the work of the RAND reading study group (2002) and develop a graphic of concentric circles to visualize how reading comprehension might be explained (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Comprehension Process

Snow, 2010

Snow (2010) states, “Reading comprehension might be thought of, then, as located on the radius of a set of concentric circles” (p. 415). At the center is what Snow terms basic reading comprehension, which involves “accurate word recognition, fluent access to word meaning, recognition of syntactic cues to sentence meaning, and short-term phonological memory” (p.415). This is followed by basic comprehension, which she defines as “the ability to construct a mental representation of the ideas presented textually” and it involves “text memory, making text-based inferences…and making text-world links” (p. 415). As the concentric circles progress outward, deeper comprehension processes are involved. Snow believes that these processes do not have to occur in order and offers evidence in the example of children who are not yet able to decode words but can still make inferences about what’s happening in the story.

The literature reviewed thus far examined print-based, written language texts, where written language, according to Cope and Kalantzis (2009), is used to refer to the mode of words on the printed page or the screen. What follows is an examination of the literature that explores how the elements of reading for meaning: text, reader and activity are impacted by reading on the internet.

Baker (2010) reviewed the literature on the impact of digital technologies on reading and writing and discovered many different theoretical frameworks. Leu et al. (2017) propose a “dual-level” theory approach to analyzing the many theoretical frameworks whereby at one level would be what they call the lowercase theories of new literacies which address and provide insight on a particular aspect of the impact of digital technologies on reading and writing, while the uppercase theory of New Literacies serves as the umbrella framework. After a more recent review of work in new literacies, Leu et al. found that the lowercase theories have the following common elements that define the larger theory:

• “The Internet is this generation’s defining technology for literacy and learning within our global community” (p. 5).
• “The Internet and related technologies require additional new literacies to fully access their potential” (p. 5).
• “New literacies are deictic” (p. 5).
• “New literacies are multiple, multimodal, and multifaceted” (p. 5).
• “Critical literacies are central to new literacies” (p. 5).
• “New forms of strategic knowledge are required with new literacies” (p. 5).
• “New social practices are a central element of New Literacies” (p. 5).
• “Teachers become more important, though their role changes, within new literacy classrooms” (p. 5).

Leu et al. (2017) insist that these findings call for a new way to think about literacy and support the argument of Kalantzis et al. (2016) that the ways in which we teach and think about reading for meaning must encapsulate the change brought on by the affordances of the communicational technologies.

The extent to which strategies overlap between offline texts and online texts supports the claim of Kalantzis et al. (2016) that traditional conceptions of how we read best are still important in the “new” literacies. Notwithstanding, the evidence in the literature on what is “new” in new literacies with reading online reveals that elements of the reading process: text, reader and activity are impacted significantly. Reading texts online is a multimodal endeavor in a hyperlinked environment; readers have more agency and online reading implies unique purposes and outcomes of reading. Understanding these changes as embedded in a sociocultural context is important for considering students’ reading for meaning in the classroom.

Forzani et al. (2020) have found that despite the need to study online reading, it continues to be an understudied area. As was demonstrated in the literature review, often, this research specifically examines the skills and strategies proven offline to be effective in reading comprehension. Research in what has been established as the new skills in new literacies is limited. Specifically, online reading as a multimodal endeavor in education is limited, and, more often than not, the focus is on skills towards successful comprehension, rather than the current interpretive practices exhibited by students with multimodal reading online. The literature has also shown that understanding these practices is important to close the gap between what teachers recognize as literacies skills versus what students actually do, and how they actually think about the multimodal texts they encounter online.

The literature reviewed suggests that reading for meaning of print-based texts is an act of comprehension. This, to some extent, involves decoding. However, comprehension is a complex process involving multiple factors. Reader and text are identified as important elements to the reading process and the activity has been shown as necessary to include when examining upper grades where reading outcomes demand more complex comprehension. Sociocultural theories influence the work of authors attempting to explain and address the complexities of reading as embedded in, or a construct of, the socio-cultural factors. This view often frames reading for meaning not as a skill or outcome such as comprehension, but rather as a practice.

Analyzing the elements integral to the reading process: reader, text and activity through theories of new literacies shed light on how digital technologies, such as the internet, have impacted reading for meaning online. Studies of reading for meaning online that view it as a multimodal practice, situated in a sociocultural context, and carried out by readers with agency within new activities, can shed much needed understanding about reading on the internet. In doing so, schools, an important “gateway” to digital literacy (Hawisher et al., 2004) realize their potential for addressing the demands of these new literacies, but also become sites of equitable teaching practices that incorporate the diverse literacies practices of youth. Knobel and Lankshear (2005) made the call for such research

that provides rich accounts of new social practices mediated by technologies and multimodal texts can help inform teachers and others in education involved in education about what the world, beyond the school gates that is mediated by these technologies and texts is like; The more such knowledge and understanding educators have the better position they are in to judge how best to integrate (or not) new technologies into school work. (p. 25)

Further research into the multimodal reading practices of students in situated contexts not only enriches the literature as Knobel and Lankshear (2005) state, but also can help close the gaps revealed by the literature between teachers’ and students’ conceptions about what literacy means today. It can also help shift the tendency for many to still view literacy as an alphabetic process, encourage more equitable classroom practices that take into account the sources of student knowledge, and reveal the ways in which students are critically thinking about what they read online.

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This work was adapted from a work submitted for general field exam, EPOL 586 Fall 2021

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