The new literacies of online reading comprehension

Online reading comprehension differs in important ways from offline reading comprehension. This chapter reviews the research showing that the Internet is this generation’s defining technology for literacy and learning. It then uses a new literacies of online reading comprehension perspective to explore research on the differences that take place during online reading comprehension. Finally, it shows how public policies, such as No Child Left Behind, with assessments that only measure offline reading comprehension, actually increase reading achievement gaps, helping the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer. Instructional and research implications are discussed