SINGAPORE - To deal with the sea of online information, parents need to navigate digital content together with their children instead of leaving them to their own devices.
This is one way for parents to develop skills in interpreting content with their children, which will help boost their critical reading skills, said reading specialist Leslie Davis at an askST @ NLB session on Friday (Nov 13).
'Even as adults we are learning new skills to read because we now have more access to information, and we are having trouble with fact and opinion as well,' Ms Davis, a training consultant at the British Council.
Ms Davis was speaking on the topic 'Relearning to read' in the video talk, which was hosted by The Straits Times senior education correspondent Sandra Davie, and streamed on ST's Facebook page on Friday (Nov 13).
They discussed the role parents can play in helping their children to be digitally literate.
The talks, which started in 2016, are a collaboration between ST and the National Library Board (NLB)
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Why do we have to relearn to read?
While reading is a skill many Singaporean children are able to take up with little difficulty, Ms Davie highlighted the difference between being literate and digitally literate.
'Reading has changed and needs to be taught differently,' she said.
Watch 'AskST@NLB: Relearn how to read'.
'Instead of receiving a carefully curated single answer from a textbook, now students go online and find numerous answers to questions and it's up to them to figure out what is right and which answer they can trust,' she added.
Despite coming in second for overall in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) test, Ms Davie noted that Singaporean students are still having difficulty interpreting information online.
The Pisa test revealed that less than half of the 15-year-old Singaporean students assessed could tell the difference between biased and unbiased sources, a problem compounded by the fact that the students spend over three hours a day outside of class online.
While students here did better than than the average across 27 education systems on interpreting bias in sources, which was just 14 per cent, the inability to read critically online is a cause for concern.
The Pisa test, which is held once every three years, is conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
'Even as adults we are having trouble with fact and opinion, a problem which was evident during the pandemic,' said Ms Davis.
'We have to learn new skills to read because we now have more access to information that's no longer one single paper source like an encyclopedia.'
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What can parents do?
Ms Davis recommends a shift towards "inquiry-based learning", which entails asking questions as the first step towards learning information as opposed to a fact-first approach.
'Asking questions like what does the author think, or believe or value is a really good starting point for critical reading,' said Ms Davis, who also has a background in psychology.
'Students need to be able to have an opinion in order to judge sources, and parents can model that thinking about the quality of questions they are asking their kids when reading things online together,' she added.
Ms Davis also spoke about slowing down the process of reading online in order to better process information, citing the book Thinking, Fast And Slow by Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman.
'In the book, he talks about how humans naturally automate lots of things like going to work, but just because it is efficient doesn't mean it's good,' she said.
'We have to consciously slow down our thinking in order to resist our own biases.'
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Ms Davie emphasised that while the amount of information now available online may be confusing and difficult, there is much to be gained for those who are prepared.
'This technology-rich digitalised world becomes full of opportunities if you can read and function effectively online,' she said.
Readers who missed the stream of the event can find the story and video here.
Past AskST @ NLB sessions can also be found at the link.
The talk was part of the askST @ NLB series, a collaboration between ST and the National Library Board (NLB).
Readers who would like more information can find it in NLB's catalogue here and searching these keywords for books on discernment and verifying online information: 'Information literacy'; 'fact-checking'; 'fake news'; 'critical thinking'.
Useful resources and tips can also be found at NLB's S.U.R.E. (Source, Understand, Research and Evaluate) website.
If you do not have a myLibraryID, you can go to this website and sign up for one using your SingPass or NRIC/FIN.
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Suggested titles to read
- Truth: How The Many Sides To Every Story Shape Our Reality
- Critical Thinking
- The Chicago Guide To Fact-Checking
- How To Read A Book
- Fake News: Separating Truth from Fiction
These books are available at various public and regional libraries.
Please click here to check on the latest status of its availability.
This article was originally published on The Straits Times.
