Print vs Digital Reading Study

A new study found that when students read digital texts for leisure it had almost no impact on their reading comprehension. This study was an analysis of 25 studies, published between 2000 and 2022, involving about 470,000 participants from at least three dozen countries. Given the minimal connection observed between digital leisure reading and reading comprehension, Altamura and her co-authors estimate that if a student spends 10 hours reading in print in their free time, their ability to comprehend will likely be six to eight times higher than if they read on digital devices for the same amount of time. 

Altamura, L., Vargas, C., & Salmerón, L. (2023). Do New Forms of Reading Pay Off? A Meta-Analysis on the Relationship Between Leisure Digital Reading Habits and Text Comprehension. Review of Educational Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543231216463

Global Digital Reading Report

Sora, the student reading platform from OverDrive, published “its first annual reading report of worldwide student digital reading data for the 2022-2023 school year.” “The State of K-12 Digital Reading,” which is available to download for free after registering, “reveals compelling regional differences, double digit growth in Comics and Graphic Novels and a surprising insight on which months tracked the most time spent reading.”

Key findings include the following:

Digital reading in K-12 schools has increased significantly over the past few years. Since 2019, total usage (based on digital book checkouts) has grown 286 percent as the number of schools using the Sora platform more than doubled. In 2022-23, usage continued the trend with 12% growth.

Reading sessions on the Sora reading app were up more than 8 percent compared to the previous school year (2021-2022), with total books read per student increasing by 3 percent.

The ebook format accounted for 84 percent of titles opened during the ’22-’23 school year, while audiobooks remain popular with 14 percent. Comics and graphic novels have contributed to the strong ebook usage, more than quadrupling in checkouts and jumping from 31 to 42% of total ebook checkouts since 2019.

For more information, read the press release at https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/student-ebook-usage-breaks-records-302105186.html.