Imagine, if you will, that you are beside me as I peer over the shoulder of my twelve-year-old son. He\u2019s using a web browser to search for an article on creating stop-motion movies, which is one of his hobbies. I barely have time to say, \u201cThat looks interesting,\u201d before he has clicked on a hyperlink and is off on entirely different page. A video catches his eye and he ignores me completely as he hits the \u201cplay\u201d button, only to discover the video is a commercial for an upcoming movie. I want to say something, but I don\u2019t have time. The mouse works its magic, and he is off again, this time in full reverse, clicking on arrows that direct him back to the original page. I keep silent now, watching him scan the article for the headlines in bold. Then he is following yet another link to yet another page.<\/span><\/p>\r\n And so it goes.<\/span><\/p>\r\n As a culture, we traditionally think of reading in terms of sounding out words, understanding the meaning of those words, and putting those words into some contextual understanding. Is this new kind of activity my son embodies even \"reading\"? It's a question worth asking.<\/span><\/p>\r\n And yet, if you read The National Council of Teachers of English\u2019s definition of reading, you\u2019ll recognize some semblance of what my son was doing, even as he jumped here and there with the mouse:<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n Readers read for different purposes. Sometimes they read for pleasure. Sometimes they read for information. Their reason for reading impacts the way they read. They may skim or read carefully depending on why they are reading. Throughout this process, readers monitor the meaning they are constructing. When the text does not meet their purposes, they may switch to another text. Readers expect what they are reading to make sense. They use a repertoire of strategies, such as rethinking, re-reading or reading on to clarify ideas, to make sure they understand what they read in order to accomplish their purposes.[footnote]http:\/\/www.learnnc.org\/lp\/pages\/6958#note1[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n This NCTE definition notes that \u201cWhen the text does not meet their purposes, they may switch to another text,\u201d and that seemed on the surface to be what my son was up to. But I wonder if he knew what he was doing. Could he articulate why he was making the choices he was making? In short, no. He could not. He has not yet developed the information-synthesizing skills and understanding of the medium to make those connections.<\/span><\/p>\r\n If the kind of text we\u00a0are encountering in these online travels is embedded with so many links and media, and if those texts are connected to other associated pages (with even more links and media), hosted by who-knows-whom, the act of reading online quickly becomes an act of hunting for treasure, with red herrings all over the place that can easily divert our\u00a0attention.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n Perhaps it would help to first examine the ways in which the two reading environments differ: How is traditional, in-class reading different from online reading? The following list was put together through a crowd-sourcing effort on Twitter by a handful of teachers.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n