Introduction
To begin with, we should understand the definitions that are associated with this study. The concepts of digital competence can be considered in a narrow and broad sense.
Explanation
The ability to provide students with an easy reading from digital media (Furenes et al., 2021)
The modern world is filled with digital equipment that helps people buy goods, solve banking problems, and even engage in creativity. There is a mass of digital equipment in schools, which should help children develop and acquire knowledge faster and remember them more firmly. Teachers become intermediaries and assistants in this significant problem, explaining to children the principles of using this equipment and searching for information. Paper books formed children’s unique type of perception of knowledge and forced them to study spelling carefully, memorize the word visually, and increase their vocabulary. Screen reading changed the order of learning new words and expanding vocabulary (Asplund & Olin-Scheller, 2021). In addition, children collect information differently now and quickly jump from one topic to another.
Problematization
In the modern world, the topic of reading children from screens is problematized at school at all levels.
The real problem arises from a general lack of interest among children in reading. In particular, this applies to the extracurricular reading of documentary, historical, and fiction literature. What previously seemed interesting to children and enticed their attention for long hours now becomes not just an object of laziness but socially unacceptable. Modern social roles, particularly the model of male gender socialization of the middle and working class, contradict adolescent (15-year-olds were chosen as an example) self-image. Teenagers prefer to spend time reading if they need to, but do not find it suitable as a hobby, unlike playing computer games or going out with friends; possibly, 15-year-olds lack a parental example to read. At the same time, the famous model of a modern man reading has not been formed in contemporary Swedish society, which allows many teenagers to reject reading as a leisure activity.
Discussion
Screen reading allows children to use footnotes more often, which would help them build vocabulary and reduce the role of the teacher as an intermediary. At the same time, spelling notes are usually not possible on phones, leaving children alone with the problem of reading as literacy stagnates. The most important aspect of reading from phones is privacy from the teacher and the creation of personal space. The use of a book is always associated with what the teacher sees. He can see the page number and pictures, and with attentiveness, he can see how thoughtfully the student reads (by the movement of the head and eyes). When reading from the phone, children regulate their personal space and do not allow the teacher to participate in the formation of the information grid. In addition, children often use a paper book as a ‘trick,’ a cover for the phone, from which they read what they want, leaving the teacher what he used to watch.
Children with low SES levels usually lack interactivity when reading from the screen, although they have close interaction with the teacher. It has been found that children are very often distracted when reading screens. It may be flickering, advertising on websites, or the design of a program or website. In addition, when reading from a screen, the ability of children to understand what they read and remember information decreases; this is especially noticeable in comparison with reading paper media. Children quickly catch the story’s logic in paper books, reflecting the characters’ actions, their names, and the names of cities and countries, even if there are many of them. Reading from paper keeps children’s attention focused and tense, which can be a factor in fatigue.
Analytics
The collected information opens up the possibility of detailed analytics of reading skills in children using mainly digital devices and paper books.
Reading from the screen profoundly affects children’s and adolescents’ thinking. Such reading is aimed at short-term memory, studying information immediately before the lesson, and forgetting. Books are often designed for long-term memory; teenagers can reproduce what they read yearly, referring to particular literature. Typically, children associate screen reading with the information they are genuinely interested in instead of the materials usually taught in school. Thus, paper literature is stereotyped and marginalized as boring. Children perceive reading from the screen as a priori interesting, sincerely crucial for them, and on a topic close to them. However, often websites and programs are set up to present information in such a way that the brain does not have time to grasp it fully. An example of such a presentation is volume footnotes, which can be downloaded in any quantity, but this will not bring any benefit when reading since the human brain’s capabilities are limited. Although from the screen, children get a text model that is easy to capture with their eyes, it is the paper book that allows lessons to be interactive and enhances the role of the teacher.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be said that reading from the screen manifests the teenage independence of children from teachers and liberty in the choice of materials. Studies show that children tend not to remember information received for a long time. All the studied materials show children’s difficulty perceiving information through the screen. It raises the question: how can teachers in the future create a productive environment for students in which they act as competent intermediaries between students and technology?
References
Asplund, S. B., & Olin-Scheller, C. (2021). Reading practices in transformation. Re-designing print-based literacy mindsets in the Swedish digital classroom. L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 21, Running Issue(Running issue), 1–27.
Furenes, M. I., Kucirkova, N., & Bus, A. G. (2021). A comparison of children’s reading on paper versus screen: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research.
Støle, H., Mangen, A., & Schwippert, K. (2020). Assessing children’s reading comprehension on paper and screen: A mode-effect study. Computers & Education, 151.