Holly Rice
e-Books vs Print What’s the Difference? It is safe to say we are inundated with technology. No matter what age, you cannot avoid the changes taking place in technology today. From tablets to Chromebooks used in the classrooms to cable television converting to internet in our homes, it seems you cannot dodge the change in technology. Technology is ever evolving, and you have no choice but to get onboard or to be left behind, or so it appears. We know as educators it is a must to stay on top of change, whether we want it or not. As teachers we sometimes blindly follow the trend because that is what we are instructed to do, but not without resignation and the thought of how we know that this change is for the better. It takes years of research and the collection of data to conclude that change may or may not be for the best. All the while, our students are the ones that could quite possibly be missing the boat. For example, there still remains the age-old debate in teaching reading as to what approach is best, whole language or phonics? Most can agree or find middle ground that there is a place for both and that both have unique characteristics in terms of helping a child learn to read (teachnology, 2022). There is also the matter of pen and paper versus typing. Neuroscientists have concluded that writing and reading what we have written with a pen or pencil rather than typing taps into the brain networks creating a much deeper learning experience (Terada et al., 2021). For the past ten plus years, another ongoing debatable topic is the matter of e-books versus traditional print. The questions remain, is one better than the other and is there a place for both? Why Traditional Print? Recent studies have shown students continue to prefer traditional print over digital screens (Baron et al., 2017; Barshay, 2019; Davidovitch et al., 2016; Kurata et al., 2017; Mizrachi, 2015). Research also suggests reading outcomes are influenced by the medium used, and currently, print supersedes digital in impact (Lenhard et al., 2017; Mangen et al., 2013; Singer & Alexander, 2017), but the margin is lessening. In a 2021 meta-analysis comparison of digital versus print in children’s learning outcomes, lower comprehension scores were associated with e-books, but with story-congruent enhancements, digital books out-performed traditional print. In the same study it was also found that adults’ mediation while reading print books to children was more effective to student comprehension than enhancements in digital books read by children independently (Furenes et al., 2021). Reading print books is associated with reading comprehension more than any other materials (McGeown et al., 2016), and reading digital texts is different than reading from a book. Reading from a digital book requires more concentration
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