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Book Review: Reader, come home: the reading brain in a digital world

Article  in  Journal of Children and Media · February 2019

DOI: 10.1080/17482798.2019.1574280

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 Journal of Children and Media

ISSN: 1748-2798 (Print) 1748-2801 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rchm20

Reader, come home: the reading brain in a digital

world

Natalia Kucirkova

To cite this article: Natalia Kucirkova (2019): Reader, come home: the reading brain in a digital
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JOURNAL OF CHILDREN AND MEDIA

BOOK REVIEW

Reader, come home: the reading brain in a digital world, by Wolf, M., New York, Harper
Collins, 2018. 272pp., £19.41 (hardback), £13.88 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-06-238878-0

Change is a difficult-to-accept but inevitable condition of life. When it comes to the new
forms of stories that we produce and consume, change becomes the topic of intense
philosophical debates, research and public concern. The developments in digital printing
are comparable in significance to the transition from oral to written culture and from hand-
copying to Gutenberg’s press. As Barzillai, Thomson, Schroeder, and van Den Broek (2018)
suggest, the difference between print and digital reading can be explored along the axis of
continuity/discontinuity. From the continuity perspective, the same reading processes (such
as decoding, story comprehension) apply to all reading contexts (e.g., printed comics or
digital novellas). From the discontinuity perspective, new contexts, such as the digital read-
ing context, draw on new reading processes that are distinct from reading on paper/stone/
previous medium and that require new methods for investigation and theoretical frame-
works for interpretation. In her book Reader, Come Home, Maryanne Wolf has adopted the
discontinuity perspective to explore the changes in the process of reading with screens. Wolf
issues a clarion call to remain vigilant about the deep reading processes that readers of all
ages need to develop and maintain in the digital era.
Professor Wolf is one of the most prominent and eminent reading scientists, with
a number of international accolades, and currently directs the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse
Learners, and Social Justice as the Chapman University Presidential Fellow in the US. Her
influence on the general public’s view on reading is evidenced through two previous highly
successful books written for popular audiences (“Proust and the Squid” by Harper Collins and
“Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century” by Oxford University Press). In “Reader Come Home”,
Wolf zooms in on the “deep reading” processes that, in her definition, consist of internalized
knowledge, analogical reasoning, and inference; perspective-taking and empathy; critical
analysis and the generation of insight. Wolf’s main argument is that these processes are
threatened by the digital medium of reading. She collates international evidence to sub-
stantiate this concern and prioritizes studies that have compared print versus digital reading
and found an advantage to the print format. Of particular interest is the evidence that
students’ reading in print led to higher comprehension scores and ability to reconstruct
the plot. Wolf hypothesises that the spatial arrangement of printed (analogue) texts
encourages more “looking back”, which, when complemented with the sense of touch,
help with readers’ orientation to the chronological nature of texts. The quick accessibility
of hyperlinked texts via screens is believed to encourage specific reading habits that are not
conducive to deep reading. In particular, Wolf is concerned that digital reading promotes
skimming, and that as skimming becomes the “new normal” for readers, this reading habit
will spill over to reading on paper too. There is also reference to tentative evidence that
suggests that reading on screen diminishes empathy.
These are important insights and Wolf’s focus on the reading brain makes an essential
contribution to ongoing debates about screen-based reading behaviour (Liu, 2008) and the
digital mindset as it is driven by modern technologies (Baron, 2015). The cognitive orienta-
tion (cf Willingham, 2017) is accentuated in Wolf’s expressions: Wolf describes the current era
as one that demands a “cerebrally pregnant pause” and refers to “the cognitive beauty” of
2 BOOK REVIEW

deep reading processes. Frequent quotes and citations to others’ work make the book rich in
intertextual links and diverse insights. What is less developed – and what remains a challenge
in the multidisciplinary field of reading research – is to accommodate other, non-cognitive
dimensions of reading (ergonomic, attentional, emotional, phenomenological, socio-cultural
and cultural-evolutionary, see Mangen & Van der Weel, 2016).
Wolf bases her conclusions predominantly on scientific studies of reading that focus on
comparing the digital with the print reading format, in relation to a specific learning out-
come. Given the experimental design of such investigations, the comparison questions focus
on a few or a single outcome and establish hierarchies of relative importance of one format
versus the other. Socio-cultural and socio-material investigations of children’s reading adopt
a different approach. Unlike in the studies cited by Wolf, socio-cultural research foregrounds
the diversity of ways readers engage with different types of texts. Cremin, Mottram, Collins,
Powell, and Safford (2014), for example, highlight that experiments, which focus only on
a discrete set of skills and outcomes offer a limited version of the rich interactions that occur
during children’s reading for pleasure. Pitting one format against the other in these studies
limits our insights into issues such as the role of readers’ identities in influencing outcomes.
Readers’ histories, preferences, and purposes for engaging with texts undeniably shape their
experiences with different reading formats.
The other methodological issue that needs careful attention in digital versus print com-
parisons is the limited insights that they afford for comparisons across time and cultures.
Psychology researchers, for example, might evaluate mother–child interactions during the
few minutes that they sit with an e-book in the laboratory. But the researchers cannot
measure all the talk that follows on the way home from the laboratory or the child’s
encounter of the book character in a film or video game or during a chat with a school
friend. Children’s experiences with stories run across several media and these transmedia
experiences are shaped by their ongoing conversations with family members and peers.
From this perspective, the influence of a specific reading format on major life skills, such as
empathy, cannot be gauged from narrowly defined design parameters.
Without a doubt, no one objects to Wolf’s call to cultivate deep reading processes from
a young age. However, the way in which Wolf presents the argument is open to several
objections. My first objection relates to Wolf’s concern that skimming on screen translates
into diminished cognitive patience with complex and dense prose. Complex literary texts
require deep engagement and this deep engagement is hypothesized to cultivate perspec-
tive-taking and empathy. Wolf is worried that the more we read short automated texts on
screen, the more our reading shifts towards skimming, and the less we will be able to read
long literary texts and benefit from the cognitive processes such deep reading affords. Wolf is
right that skimming is not helpful for reading comprehension. But the technique of speed
reading is helpful in searching for key information or scanning for keywords and readers use
this technique not only with digital texts: the purpose of reading, length of text and reading
circumstances influence whether readers skim or read deeply. The confluence of these factors
offers a host of alternative explanations for why skimming occurs in the digital format.
My second objection relates to the importance Wolf attaches to specific types of content
as being most conducive to deep reading. Graphic novels, comics, rap poems and other
contemporary popular genres are crowding out literary fiction. Is the insistence on the
importance of long literary fiction a wish for a nostalgic return to a different era of reading
practices? Short, concise articles work hand in hand with the digital medium, and the
content-format combination influences the new reading habits we develop, including our
attention span and interest. Surely, a focus on format without a clearer acknowledgement of
content misses the point of what gets lost and gained in the digital era. It is a truism that
 JOURNAL OF CHILDREN AND MEDIA 3

adults adopt different reading practices depending on the reading medium and its content
and many make conscious decisions about the format in relation to the text it accommo-
dates. I would venture to argue that Wolf’s engaging writing style makes for enjoyable
reading, regardless of the format it appears in. I would conclude that different formats
demand different skills and therefore, the provision of, and training in the use of, multiple
reading formats would be a more visionary call for the future of reading.
The third objection is that deep reading processes are defined in a way that does not
accommodate the possibility that not all these processes require literacy. If deep reading was
as closely linked to these processes as Wolf claims, then what about oral cultures and less
literate zones of the world that have developed internalized knowledge, inference and
perspective-taking? Did these nations develop these capacities independently of reading?
Explaining exactly what deep reading is would help readers better navigate the inevitable
evolution in reading.
Clearly, children and adults are likely to experience the revolution in reading quite differently,
given their different experiences with screen media. For children born after 2010, seeing their
family members reading on screen is as common, if not more common, than reading on paper.
Their first encounter with stories, written, audio, visual and multimedia, happens as much with as
without screens. These children are less aware of the disconnection between a digital and non-
digital reading medium than any generation of children before them. It follows that we need
different study designs, lenses of interpretation and research questions when we are investigat-
ing children’s vs. adults’ reading on screen. Relying on data mainly from adults, Wolf highlights
questions related to format comparisons. However, for many researchers investigating the
impact of digital reading on children’s outcomes, the questions revolve around specific features
within, rather than between, format(s). For example, a recent randomised controlled trial found
that visual enhancements in digital books support children’s story comprehension but this was
not helpful for children’s word learning (Sarı, Başal, Takacs, & Bus, 2019). It is such granular focus
on specific features within a given format that provides clues to children’s reading-related
outcomes. To disentangle the effects of format vs. content, researchers ask questions about
features that run across different reading formats. Such features include interactivity, materiality
and personalization. Rather than asking whether one medium is better than the other, childhood
scholars ask: What level of interactivity makes a difference to children’s story comprehension and
engagement in the story? To what extent is the possibility to tailor reading display and supports
to individual readers helpful for their reading comprehension? How might the provision of
choice in reading formats influence children’s motivation levels? Such questions seem more
relevant for deep reading processes than the more simple question of what format the text is
presented on. Moreover, various enhancements in both print and digital children’s books (visual,
auditory, textual, haptic), move researchers away from format questions to the different modes
of meaning-making. Multimodality researchers have been researching for several decades the
ways in which all five senses partake in reading. For them, the printed paper and the screen
afford different opportunities for meaning-making. Back in 2005, Kress (p. 105, Kress & Burn,
2005) alluded to the inevitable change that Wolf is concerned about: “(. . .) as a medium, the book
will continue, though in always changing form, as it always did. The really close constellation of
the mode of writing and the medium of the book that we knew, and which shaped cultural
imaginations over the last two or three centuries, that I think will change.”
Wolf’s close attention to the deep reading process with written narratives acts as a useful
springboard for future investigations. Her concern about the limited and negative role of
reading on screen for learning acts as a pointer to where multidisciplinary research and
design are needed. The assertion that written stories, as opposed to narratives and fiction
overall, are uniquely implicated in empathy is not proven in either adult (Mar & Oatley, 2008)
 4 BOOK REVIEW

or children’s literacy studies (Kucirkova, 2019). Immersive story-telling, stories localized

according to the reader’s GPS position, and novellas delivered via Twitter are a few examples
of a growing mosaic of new ways to encounter stories. Before we write the new paths off,
let us explore them in more depth. Wolf’s book is a critical guide for preparing readers of all
ages for this new adventure.

Acknowledgments
I thank Professor Anne Mangen for her useful comments on a draft of this review.

References
Baron, N. S. (2015). Words onscreen: The fate of reading in a digital world. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA.
Barzillai, M., Thomson, J., Schroeder, S., & van Den Broek, P. (2018). Learning to read in a digital world.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Collins, F. M., Powell, S., & Safford, K. (2014). Building communities of engaged readers:
Reading for pleasure. London: Routledge.
Kress, G., & Burn, A. (2005). Pictures from a rocket: English and the semiotic take. English Teaching: Practice and
Critique, 4(1), 95–105.
Kucirkova, N. (2019). How could children’s storybooks promote empathy? A conceptual framework based on
developmental psychology and literary theory. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00121
Liu, Z. (2008). Paper to digital: Documents in the information age. Westport/London: Libraries Unlimited.
Mangen, A., & Van der Weel, A. (2016). The evolution of reading in the age of digitisation: An integrative
framework for reading research. Literacy, 50(3), 116–124.
Mar, R. A., & Oatley, K. (2008). The function of fiction is the abstraction and simulation of social experience.
Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(3), 173–192.
Sarı, B., Başal, H. A., Takacs, Z. K., & Bus, A. G. (2019). A randomized controlled trial to test efficacy of digital
enhancements of storybooks in support of narrative comprehension and word learning. Journal of
Experimental Child Psychology, 179, 212–226.
Willingham, D. T. (2017). The reading mind: A cognitive approach to understanding how the mind reads. New
York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Natalia Kucirkova
University of Stavanger, Norway
natalia.kucirkova@uis.no http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2805-1745
© 2019 Natalia Kucirkova
https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2019.1574280

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