With younger children, Professor Baron said, it makes sense to stick with print to the extent that it is possible. A result can be that we don’t give that material the right kind of attention. And then we tend to use that same approach to on-screen reading with harder material that we need to learn from, to slow down with, to absorb more carefully. Naomi Baron, who is professor emerita of linguistics at American University and author of a new book, “ How We Read Now: Strategic Choices for Print, Screen and Audio,” said, “there are two components, the physical medium and the mind-set we bring to reading on that medium - and everything else sort of follows from that.”īecause we use screens for social purposes and for amusement, we all - adults and children - get used to absorbing online material, much of which was designed to be read quickly and casually, without much effort. It can feel as if there’s no turning back to the time when learning involved hitting the actual books.īut the format children read in can make a difference in terms of how they absorb information. In this pandemic year, parents have been watching - often anxiously - their children’s increasing reliance on screens for every aspect of their education.

Reading on tablet