Arquilectur@: Forms of digital reading among children in primary education

Abstract

The network society is experiencing different text transformations under multiple views that cause changes in reading phenomenology including structural issues such as the unedited implications that the subject participant lives within the digital community. The roles of writer and reader are blurred, fragmented and lose the typical unilateral dimension of the past that gave more power to the writer. Now, the reader decides the links he or she wants to follow and uses schemes and new structures of argument and construction of meaning. In addition, the reader lives physical implications that have a substantial impact on his or her reading process through the bodily dimension –haptic and ergonomic - that he or she experiences through contact with devices. This article presents the results of a study conducted in 2013-2014 on the procedures of digital reading of primary children in the communities of Madrid and Segovia. The extensive theoretical research gives light to a field of study which has been named ArquiLectur@, and analysis of data collected through a qualitative methodology provides references and observations on the reading experiences of participants. The results describe the modalities of reading in the 21st century as well as the presentation of different typologies of young readers on the web.