Several years ago I read about a study that found that people read from a computer screen at 75% the rate that they read from print material. It was a small study and I always hoped that someone would investigate this further. My thought at the time was that this reduction would not be a problem for good/fast readers but might be significant for those who already read slowly or poorly.
I still want somebody to do more research on this. My gut feeling is that the earlier finding is probably still true to some extent for those of us whose reading experience has been initially and primarily print. It would be useful to know to what degree it is true of our young people who have spent so much of their lives reading from computer screens. This could have important implications as we move into more online testing.
What made me think of all this? For this discovery exercise there is a lot we need to read. Maybe I've been spoiled by all the interactive things we have been exploring, but I'm having a hard time making myself just read. I've even resorted to printing some of the articles so that I can read them in my comfy chair instead of at the computer. So much for the "paperless society"!
I've read similar statistics about comparision of print reading to reading from computers. It is a much slower rate of reading on computers. I will share these statistics if I can remember where I found them.
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