Leisure digital reading on a phone, tablet or computer has many applications. Anyone with a phone or other device can get instant answers to their questions and access newspapers, magazines, research papers and e-books.
All of that can be a great way to increase students' access to diverse texts, but when it comes to helping students' reading comprehension, digital leisure reading appears to fall behind traditional print reading.
A recent study found that there was almost no connection between leisure digital reading and improvements in reading comprehension. This contrasts with previous research that showed that print reading, whether for leisure or school, helped improve readers' comprehension development.
“We already knew about the positive relationship between print reading and reading comprehension, but we did not have any studies that had collected evidence on digital reading in recent decades,” says Lidia Altamura, lead author of the study. New study on digital reading and reading comprehension and doctoral student at the University of Valencia in Spain.
How was this digital reading comprehension study conducted and what did it find?
This study was an analysis of 25 studies, published between 2000 and 2022, involving around 470,000 participants from at least three dozen countries. Given the minimal connection observed between leisure digital reading and reading comprehension, Altamura and his co-authors estimate that if a student spends 10 hours reading print in their free time, their comprehension ability will likely be six to eight times greater than if they read on digital devices for the same amount of time.
The extent of the difference observed between the impact of print and digital leisure reading surprised the researchers.
“We expected that at least leisure digital reading for informational purposes, such as visiting Wikipedia or other educational websites, or reading the news, would be much more positively linked to comprehension,” Altamura says. “However, we did not find differences with other types of digital reading, closer to recreational reading such as chatting or consulting social networks.”
Did the age of the students matter?
Yes. For younger elementary and middle school students, if anything, leisure digital reading had a negative impact on reading comprehension. For older students in high school and college, the connection was positive but still smaller than it would be if they had read printed texts.
“The differences could be explained by sensitive periods of development. While younger children are still developing and consolidating their reading skills, older students rely on the reading comprehension skills they have already acquired,” says Altamura. “This prior consolidation can help them overcome some of the challenges that digital reading presents.”
Is digital reading as good as print reading in general?
Probably not. Researchers have long noted what is called The screen inferiority effect., indicating that print readers tend to retain more information than digital readers. The same researchers behind this digital reading study also recently compared the effect of reading print versus digital texts for students.
“We found a frequent screen inferiority effect, meaning that reading comprehension was slightly better in print than in digital format,” says Altamura. “The final data set consisted of 30 studies with 161,469 participants.”
And he adds: “This finding also helps us understand why the relationship between leisure digital reading habits and reading comprehension is practically non-existent.”
What are the next steps for this type of research?
Given the amount of time most students spend in front of a screen, digital reading in young students is an area that needs more research.
“The majority of studies reviewed in our meta-analysis included high school or college students,” says Altamura. “We believe that it is important to know how the relationship between the frequency of digital reading and reading comprehension evolves over time during the early educational stages, such as primary school. “This is something we are currently working on in a longitudinal study.”
What does all this mean for educators and parents?
“We encourage educators and parents to pay attention to the reading medium children use to read,” says Altamura. “We do not declare war on new technologies, they are undoubtedly part of current education. However, we do have to take into account how we use them and how we can implement them, for example, depending on the topic and content. Another aspect to consider is the skill level of the students.”
And he adds: “We suggest that it could be beneficial to introduce digital devices when a more consolidated base of reading comprehension has already been acquired, as is the case with secondary school students.”
