Does it matter what medium we use for reading development?
Does it matter what medium we use for reading development?
Besides the amount of reading there is another concern these days: does it matter what medium we use for reading development? The proposed symposium aims at investigating the pros and cons of reading from digital devices. The purpose of the symposium is to present papers that discuss the use (Dias & Britto) and effect of digital devices on the act of reading (Bergamin & Werlen; Ben-Yehudah, Caspi & Eshet-Alkalai) and the result of reading, i.e., reading comprehension and print knowledge (Ben-Yehudah, Caspi & Eshet-Alkalai; Roy-Charland, Perron, Clutier, Huot & LaForge; Van Dijken & Bus;).
The papers are theoretically related but differ in the studies’ design (experimental, correlational), the population studied (pre- and kindergarten children, G1, G2 and high school students), the devices tested (smartphone, tablet, SMART-board), the outcome measures (print knowledge, reading comprehension, empathy) and the methods used (eye-tracking, paper– and pencil c.q. computer tasks, automated facial recognition, questionnaires).