Think quickly: How are your eyes moving as you are reading this page? Are you tracking left to right, as you would with a typical book? Or are your eye movements a little different?
Now here is a more difficult question. How should your eyes move when reading a multimodal text, like this blog post? What kinds of movements are most efficient? What do our eye movements reveal about what we value as readers?
In her research on multimodal literacy, Rachel Karchmer-Klein has worked to answer these and other questions. If you have ever wondered how reading electronic texts is different from reading traditional texts, you'll find Dr. Karchmer-Klein's views compelling. Hear her talk about reading electronic texts:
Within the next ten years, teachers will see a huge shift toward electronic texts in the classroom. And it just makes sense! Instead of paying thousands of dollars for updated textbooks every few years, school districts will just have to press a "Sync Content" button to receive the most up-to-date information. This will be a huge advantage for our small school districts in Pennsylvania.
How will we create this multimodal text? What tools will we use to track student progress? These are important questions to consider.
In your classroom
Experiment with some electronic texts and multimodal reading! Here are some good ones to try.
Murky Reef: This iPad app combines play and reading. Try it out to see how engaging multimodal texts can be.
Book Apps: This blog post from the Book Chook includes links to many different book apps.
When and where
Rachel Karchmer-Klein presents a keynote address at the KSRA Conference on Friday, October 18, 2013.
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