When searching for new reading materials, some students turned to digital resources, where they encountered an array of challenges. To begin with, students lacked familiarity with where to find online or digital resources.
– The Covid-19 School Closure Effect on Student’s Print and Digital Reading
… for instance, in the PISA computer-based reading assessment, test items were designed to incorporate social media platforms such as blogs, forums, and online news (OECD, 2019a).
– The effects of ICT-based social media on adolescents’ digital reading performance: A longitudinal study of PISA 2009, PISA 2012, PISA 2015 and PISA 2018
Students are well into their holidays. Many of them may be spending more time than usual on their digital devices. Some parents may wonder if other children too display similar levels of attachment. Three researchers from the National Institute of Education investigated among other things, if primary school students in Singapore would use their digital devices to read.
Their paper was specifically on the reading preferences and reading enjoyment levels of primary school students during school closure due to Covid-19, between April and June last year. One premise of their research was that students here have been described as digital natives and so a natural question would be if they use their digital devices for more than games and specifically for reading.
Though the findings related specifically to the school closure in 2020, they may be useful in understanding how students spend their time during holidays in general. It was found, for example, that the top five ways of spending time were as follows:
- Playing games with a device
- Hobbies
- Reading
- Watching TV
- Spending time with family
Students may still be spending their time in these main ways during holidays. They may also go for enrichment classes or spend time with friends in today’s context.
Over 700 out of 1420 primary 4 and 5 students from 6 primary schools had said playing games with a device was their favourite thing to do both before and during the school closure. Reading featured prominently on this list for both before and during school closure. This meant that a significant number of students felt that reading for leisure was their favourite thing to do.
Many of them complained though that there was a lack of physical books as they had read all the books at home. Though they are in some sense digital natives, it was found that primary school students were uncertain about how to access books online.
Reading on digital devices such as smartphones could take several forms.
Secondary school students may be able to access news content, blogs and forums and social media because of age requirements and because they have acquired the relevant concepts. It was reported that in the PISA “computer-based reading assessment”, students were asked to read content in such online formats (OECD, 2019a as cited in Hu & Yu, 2021).
Primary school students, especially middle and upper primary students may also be able to use their smart devices to access text for interest. For example, a primary 4 student recently presented his Roblox game during Show and Tell. He had learnt to construct this game on his own through reading instructions on the Roblox Studio.
The three researchers from the National Institute of Education were specifically interested in whether primary school students preferred e-books to printed versions. The findings revealed an overwhelming preference for print books. When they did use their digital devices, primary school students watched YouTube Videos and played games.
Games are designed to maximise time spent on them and it is not difficult to see why a lot of time spent on digital devices is on games. YouTube may not be a bad thing because there is a lot of educational content on it. Some of this content may introduce students to matters which are not covered in school. For example, this year, a BBC headline read, “US military UFO report ‘does not confirm or rule out alien activity”. While the article itself may be relatively long or may require background knowledge, on YouTube, there is likely to be videos which explain topics like this in an easy-to-understand way for kids. Indeed, it has been observed that many primary school students gain a lot of background knowledge necessary for Science or English comprehension (open-ended and cloze) from YouTube videos.
Education in school is a means to an end and not an end in itself. This is so for various reasons. Some such reasons include how there is too much information and way too many domains of knowledge to be covered in school. The diversity of interests in the student body is likely to be too wide. In a sense, education in school is preparation for learning outside of school. If students had literacy skills, they could use them to learn whatever it is they had interest in. This is how people develop deep reservoirs of knowledge over time.
So, when reading is recommended as a beneficial activity, it is beneficial not merely for school performance. Strong performance is in this sense, more a consequence of wide reading and less a motivating reason for reading. Without being able to comprehend texts for example, a student would not be able to satisfy curiosity about Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon observed elsewhere. Natural curiosity about the world or worlds around us is likely to be a strong motivating factor.
In other words, children are naturally curious. It will be difficult to answer all of their questions at once and for prolonged periods. Self-directed learning is a great solution. To be able to do this, students need literacy skills. These, they acquire in school. Apart from formal instruction in school, reading story books (longer ones) has been proven to be very effective in developing literacy skills.
Technology affords instant access to almost any book of interest. Students could be using technology more to access books. Currently, primary school students say they face obstacles in reading books in digital format. They explained to the three researchers that it was far easier to play games online than to find or read e-books on their smart phones.
Some of the difficulties primary school students faced with reading on smart phones related to how and where to find e-books, navigating e-books, smaller font size, battery life of digital devices and not being able to pick up from where they had left off in the e-book. There were also concerns about eyesight and how reading for prolonged periods online was straining on the eyes.
Some of these concerns may be valid. For eyesight related concerns, it is possible to install light filter applications on phones or tablets. The researchers highlighted the National Library Board’s app which allows users to borrow e-books. The app is called overdrive. This app allows users to change the font size and offers definitions if a reader clicks on any word. Also, this app allows readers to pick up from where they had left off. Some students wonder what they should read and if the books they choose would be at the right reading level. To help them, the National Library Board has DiscoverReads which has recommendations for every year in primary and secondary school.
One advantage of NLB’s overdrive over borrowing physical copies is that should students decide after the first few pages, they do not like a book, they could return it and borrow something else in seconds.
There are also other electronic options such as Google Books and Kindle.
The smartphone is a great invention because it gives us access to the world in the palm of our hand. It would be a waste to only play games on the phone.
Students could use this time for some Mindcraft instead.
The Brain Dojo
