New Modes of Reading Comprehension on the Web

Rand Spiro, Project Director

Michael DeSchryver and Fei Gao, Research Assistants

The Web is making possible new forms of reading comprehension that have yet to be fully explored. This set of studies examines and tests the implications of readers assuming greater responsibility in “authoring” assemblages of fragments from different sites to build their own “texts” to suit evolving purposes of understanding and to develop deeper comprehension. Ways to alter habits of mind from searching for answers to more open and multi-perspectival inquiries are receiving special attention. Throughout the project, new models of reading comprehension appropriate to the nonlinear, high speed, random access world of the Web are being developed that contrast markedly with traditional models of reading comprehension and text structure.