Reflections on Web Reading

If given a choice I prefer reading from a book. I am not a techno savey person, when I read on a computer it's on a laptop, at a desk, inside, either at home or in a library. I much prefer laying on a couch or propped up in bed. In addition I like to underline text and write notes in themargin, especially if what I am reading is for a class; I am unable to do either of these things when I am reading on a computer.

That being said, the selection on Web reading was interesting, it made me think about things that I had not before. When reading a printed book nothing can be done about the size of the front or the margins. Up til now I thought the saem was true for text off the web, I was not aware that I could change the size of the font. I have to say that definitly made the reading easier. In addition, there is usually no animated messages or advertisments in a book. With a web page not only are there various distracting messages, but there can be pop ups as well. All of these things are huge distractors, so a web reader is not just grappling with comprehending the text they wish to read, but is also being forced to navigate through unwanted text.

This makes me think of a situation going on in EOG testing. There is an abreviated version of the EOG that is given to students who are in EC and show to be the lowest learners. Two years ago they piloted a version of this test, which was to be taken on the computer. So here you have students who are already struggling with reading and then those struggles are compounded by difficilties they have with reading from a computer. Perhaps if these students were more familiar with using and reading a computer it woud be one thing, but most of these students are also in the lower socio economic strata, so they do not have access to computer at home.

I thought it then, and I definilty think it now, this is a bad idea.