Just received acceptance of my proposal to do a workshop at the 18th European Conference on Reading Jönköping, Sweden, 6-9 August 2013  ” On behalf of the Coordinating Committee of the 18th European Conference on Reading, we are very pleased to inform you that your proposal has been accepted. Type of presentation: Workshop”. One of the key note speakers will be Donald Leu. Very happy with that. Hope to be able to talk with one of the founding fathers of research on online reading comprehension. Join us at the conference!  Go here for more details.

Abstract proposal workshop
In our daily practice we experience that a lot of students find it difficult to find, evaluate, choose and understand information online. PISA (2009) tells us that, “ on average among 15-year-olds who have grown up in a “wired” world, 18% have serious difficulties navigating through the digital environment, (…). And in some countries these percentages are much larger” (OECD, 2011). In some countries the level of offline reading comprehension (reading texts on paper) is much higher than the level of online reading comprehension, while in other countries it’s the other way around. So online and offline reading comprehension seem to be a different ballgame. Already a decade ago the RAND Reading Study Group reported, “[E]lectronic texts that incorporate hyperlinks and hypermedia . . . require skills and abilities beyond those required for the comprehension of conventional, linear print”” — (Coiro, 2011, p. 3). And the International Reading Association tells us “ (…) that traditional definitions of reading, writing, and communication, and traditional definitions of best practice instruction—derived from a long tradition of book and other print media—are insufficient in the 21st century.” (International Reading Association, 2009, p. 2) The IRA tells us also that  “Literacy educators have a responsibility to integrate these new literacies into the curriculum to prepare students for successful civic participation in a global environment.” — (International Reading Association, 2009, p. 2)
OK, but how? Most teachers find it difficult to understand what’s different in Online Reading Comprehension and what we can do to make this a part of our curriculum. And that’s understandable, because there is not very much information available for classroom teachers. Donne Alverman tells us that for “classroom teachers, teacher educators, and researchers whose work is focused at the middle and high school level [online reading comprehension  JC] is rarely a topic of discussion in practitioner journals, or at least in the ones I read on a regular basis.” — (Alvermann, 2008, p. 9)

I would like to discuss Online Reading Comprehension with teachers in an interactive workshop setting. We will talk about the difference between Online and Offline Reading Comprehension, our challenges and fears, our daily practice, and the possibilities to include this in our classrooms and maybe even possibilities to collaborate.

Alvermann, D. E. (2008). Why Bother Theorizing Adolescents’ Online Literacies for Classroom Practice and Research? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(1), 8–19.
Coiro, J. L. (2011). Predicting Reading Comprehension on the Internet: Contributions of Offline Reading Skills, Online Reading Skills, and Prior Knowledge. Journal of Literacy Research, 1–42.
International Reading Association. (2009). New literacies and 21st century technologies: A position statement of the International Reading Association. Newark, DE: Author.
OECD. (2011). PISA 2009 Results: Students On Line (Vol. VI, p. 395). OECD Publishing.