Three Types of Reading ...

Elizabeth Weil (New York Times) has an interesting article in this week’s Education magazine section. In it, she quotes Evan Schnittman, a managing director at Bloomsbury Publishing, who breaks down reading into three kinds as follows

• extractive reading (say, looking up words in the dictionary);
• immersive reading (sinking into “Moby-Dick”) and
• pedagogic reading (studying a physics curriculum).

Clearly, we teach the first when we instruct about searching and using databases, table of contents, the index, etc. In her article, Weil writes that the second "works beautifully on e-ink readers" while noting that e-reading expert Schnittman says a digital device providing a the solution for the third type of reading might be in tablets like the iPad. View the entire September 19 2010 Education issue for more articles with titles like

• Achieving Techno-Literacy;
• Does the Digital Classroom Enfeeble the Mind?;
• Online Curiosity Killer; and
• Anytime, Anywhere which is about online learning and references the soon-to-be-released National Education Technology Plan

There is also an Interactive on the History of Technology in the Classroom. Makes one wonder: have we gone from one handheld device (slate/horn book) to another (Kindle/iPad/netbook)? Join the discussion at The New York Times.