2 authors: Gina Biancarosa University of Oregon 49

www.futureofchildren.org

Gina Biancarosa is an assistant professor in educational methodology, policy, and leadership at the University of Oregon’s College of Education. Gina G. Griffiths is a doctoral candidate in communication disorders and sciences at the University of Oregon’s College of Education.

T
Gina Biancarosa and Gina G. Griffiths

echnological advances are dramatically altering the texts and tools available to students and teachers. Since 2007, the number of devices available for

displaying digital text has increased expo- nentially.¹ The first e-reader to take hold in the market, the Amazon Kindle, sold out two days after it was released in November 2007.² By June 2011, Amazon reported selling more Kindle books than hard- and soft-back books combined.³ Meanwhile, the first large-scale release of a touchscreen tablet, the Apple iPad in April 2010, further expanded options for readers to access digital-text media with its inclusion of the application “iBooks.”⁴ By the time the iPad 2 was released in March 2011, more than 15 million units had already sold, and by June 2011 that number was 27 million.⁵ Analysts forecast that 89.5 million units, including both tablets and e-readers, will sell worldwide in 2014.⁶

These technological advances have created high hopes among many teachers, adminis- trators, researchers, and policy makers, who believe that the digital devices offer great promise as instructional tools for literacy education. Simple applications of existing

e-reading technology such as changing font size on-screen, using text-to-speech features to provide dual input of text, or using the Internet to collaborate on learning activi- ties may substantially improve the learn-
ing of many students.⁷ At the 2011 annual International Conference on Computers in Education, researchers from around the world met to exchange ideas on more-
advanced uses of e-reading technology, rang- ing from providing individualized feedback through artificially intelligent animated avatars, to fostering critical thinking skills through computer-supported collaboration, to predicting students’ interest or frustration

based on brain-wave signals and mouse-click behavior.⁸

Yet with the promise of these advances come issues that can further exacerbate the lit- eracy challenges that are identified in other articles in this volume, such as gaps in the literacy skills of students of different socio- economic status. Nonie Lesaux, for example, highlights the importance of higher-level conceptual skills and knowledge for literacy, and she stresses the need to narrow gaps in those areas by providing all students with adequate opportunities to develop such knowledge.⁹ The new e-technology, however, may inadvertently widen such gaps. Parents, for example, increasingly use technology

to provide their children with learning and reading opportunities—and today’s parents are the fastest-growing population of con- sumers purchasing e-reading technology. But parents are not equally able to provide those opportunities for their children.¹⁰ As figure 1 depicts, ownership of tablets and e-readers is surging, with sales doubling over six months in 2011 and doubling again in the final month of 2011.¹¹ But as figure 1 also illustrates, purchasing patterns indicate a widening education-based gap in access, a gap that also exists when purchasing patterns are disag- gregated by income level.¹² The resulting technology gap closely resembles the demo- graphically based literacy-skills gap outlined in the article in this issue by Sean Reardon, Rachel Valentino, and Kenneth Shores, thus raising the worrisome possibility that new technologies for developing literacy skills will pose further difficulties for students from
low-income families.¹³

And even if policy makers and educators address gaps in access to technology, experts warn that achievement disparities may continue to widen unless students are given

Figure 1. Changing Percentages of Tablet and E-reader Ownership by Education Level

35

Tablet owners

All adults

Adults with college degrees Adults with some college


Percentage
Adults with high school diplomas
Adults with some high school

November 2010

January 2011

March 2011

May 2011

July 2011

September 2011

November 2011

January 2012

35

E-reader owners
All adults

Adults with college degrees Adults with some college


Percentage
Adults with high school diplomas
Adults with some high school

November 2010

January 2011

March 2011

May 2011

July 2011

September 2011

November 2011

January 2012

Sources: Pew Internet and American Life Project.

sufficient opportunities to learn how to use the technology to accomplish a wide range of goals. Although demographic gaps in access to technology at home are being narrowed by students’ improving access at schools, libraries, and community technology centers, serious gaps remain in students’ ability to use technology in sophisticated ways.¹⁴ High- achieving students are not only more likely to use technology for interest-driven activities
such as researching topics or collaborating online to create new media, but are also more likely to have adult guidance in its use.¹⁵ Lower-achieving students are more likely
to use it for socially driven activities such as chatting or playing games with friends using social media, following pop-ups, or surf-
ing through links of celebrities and sports figures.¹⁶

Such differences in the way students use technology may not only do little to shrink knowledge gaps, but may in fact exacerbate them. Students need more than access to technology; they need to learn how to apply it strategically to advance their literacy skills— especially the conceptual and knowledge- based capacities that become crucial in later literacy tasks. In her article in this issue, Susan Goldman describes how having to navigate vast amounts of unfiltered informa- tion at various levels of complexity and in different forms can complicate learning for students who are already struggling to master strategic approaches to reading and critical thinking skills.¹⁷

Although the need for students to master literacy skills and knowledge is not new to the digital age, the urgency of that need is amplified by technology. The question is not the narrow one of how to fit technology into literacy education, but the broader one of how to transform literacy education to meet today’s changing demands.

The good news is that technology can be a tool for mitigating many literacy challenges. It is already being used in new and promising ways to address the full range of skills, both proce- dural and conceptual, required for improving student literacy. That is, technology can be more than a tool for drilling students on skills; it can be a tool for acquiring the vocabulary and background knowledge essential to becoming a skilled reader. Although technol- ogy is no panacea for literacy problems, it can be part of the solution. For its promise to be realized, however, its tools must be embedded strategically within cohesive, evidence-based educational programs.

In this article we examine how teachers are using reading technology to address

the literacy challenges highlighted in other articles in this issue. Though many early literacy technologies have thus far focused on basic reading skills, we explore how technol- ogy can build knowledge and support higher- level reading strategies and behaviors. We address key systemic issues facing educators and policy makers in their efforts to make reading technology a tool for improving literacy rather than yet another source of inequity, and we conclude with recommenda- tions about how to maximize the benefits of investments in e-reading technology tools.
We begin by clarifying terminology.