"Only Connect!”: Creating Connections when Reading Fiction and Digital Texts

The paper draws on work within neuroscience as well as literacy education and cognitive literary studies to examine differences between the deep reading of traditional narratives and the reading of digital media. Since game-playing, hyper-links and extended novel reading can affect how the brain develops, teachers need to understand how they can enable their pupils to develop the neural pathways that make flexibility of reading style possible. This means engaging with the impressive array of research available within the neurosciences on learning to read. The particular capacity examined is connectivity. The nature of instant access to anyone who is on-line and the use of hyperlinks are contrasted with the connectivity with fictional others proffered by the deep reading of novels, specifically fantasy series. The article concludes by calling for more sustained classroom reading as well as support for digital literacies.

"The nature of instant access to anyone who is on-line and the use of hyperlinks are contrasted with the connectivity with fictional others proffered by the deep reading of novels, specifically fantasy series. The article concludes by calling for more sustained classroom reading as well as support for digital literacies." (Author, in Abstract)