What parents need to know
Study of 300,000+ primary students found that even 30 minutes of digital device use in class negatively impacts reading comprehension. Many digital activities in language arts classrooms “could well be hampering student reading development.”
Full Citation
Salmerón, L., Vargas, C., Delgado, P., & Barón, J. (2022). Relation between digital tool practices in the language arts classroom and reading comprehension scores. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 38(5), 1423-1435.
Publication Type
Peer-reviewed research article published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, analysing large-scale educational data
What They Studied
Researchers analysed data from over 300,000 primary school students to examine the relationship between digital device use in language arts classrooms and reading comprehension performance. The study investigated how much time students spent using digital tools during reading instruction and correlated this with their reading comprehension test scores. The research specifically looked at whether digital reading activities delivered the promised benefits for literacy development.
Key Findings
- Even 30 minutes of digital device use in class had a negative impact on reading comprehension scores
- “Generalized use of digital technologies in education (here, in reading classrooms) appears susceptible to making the traditional mistake of adopting digital innovations without relying on evaluations of their effectiveness”
- “Our analysis suggests that many of the digitally-based activities performed in language arts classrooms in the US, particularly in lower grades, could well be hampering student reading development”
- The negative relationship between digital tool use and reading comprehension was consistent across the large sample
- Lower grades showed particularly strong negative effects, suggesting young children are especially vulnerable to the downsides of digital reading instruction
- As Emily Cherkin noted in her testimony to UK Parliament, this massive study provides compelling evidence that classroom technology is actively harming reading development during critical learning years
- The findings directly contradict EdTech industry claims that digital tools enhance literacy instruction
