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Teachers and students alike report that for today’s students, “research” means “Googling.”  As a result, some teachers report that for their students “doing research” has shifted from a relatively slow process of intellectual curiosity and discovery to a fast-paced, short-term exercise aimed at locating just enough information to complete an assignment.

  Second and third on the list of frequently used sources are online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia, and social media sites such as YouTube. 

 94% of the teachers surveyed say their students are “very likely” to use Google or other online search engines in a typical research assignment, placing it well ahead of all other sources that we asked about

e databases such as EBSCO, JSTOR, or Grolier (17%) A research librarian at their school or public library (16%)

In response to this trend, many teachers say they shape research assignments to address what they feel can be their students’ overdependence on search engines and online encyclopedias.  Nine in ten (90%) direct their students to specific online resources they feel are most appropriate for a particular assignment, and 83% develop research questions or assignments that require students to use a wider variety of sources, both online and offline.

Teachers give students’ research skills modest ratings Despite viewing the overall impact of today’s digital environment on students’ research habits as “mostly positive,” teachers rate the actual research skills of their students as “good” or “fair” in most cases.  Very few teachers rate their students “excellent” on any of the research skills included in the survey.  This is notable, given that the majority of the sample teaches Advanced Placement courses to the most academically advanced students.

Overwhelming majorities of these teachers also agree with the assertions that “today’s digital technologies are creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans” (87%) and “today’s students are too ‘plugged in’ and need more time away from their digital technologies” (86%).  Two-thirds (64%) agree with the notion that “today’s digital technologies do more to distract students than to help them academically.”

If students are to interpret the meanings such complex sentence structures convey, they need to learn how to make sense of the conventions of text—phrasing, word order, punctuation, and language.

Students who are aware of the patterns authors use to communicate complex information have an advantage in making sense of text.

maintaining understanding across a text.

Students' background knowledge, including developmental, experiential, and cognitive factors, influences their ability to understand the explicit and inferential qualities of a text.

building skills, establishing purpose, and fostering motivation.

even students who have basic decoding skills sometimes struggle to deploy these skills easily and accurately enough to get a purchase on challenging text. To help these students develop reading fluency, teachers should give them lots of practice with reading the same text, as well as instruction to help them develop a stronger sense of where to pause in sentences, how to group words, and how their voices should rise or fall at various junctures when reading aloud.

A final determinant of text difficulty, however, depends on the reader's prior knowledge.

pair repeated readings of the same text with questions that require the student to read closely for detail and key ideas.

Ongoing, solid vocabulary instruction

also on general academic words.

also explore the connections among words,

In contrast, in reading history and literature, readers need to be concerned with not just the causes of events, but also the human intentions behind these causes.

teachers should not convey so much information that it spoils the reading or enables students to participate in class without completing the reading; rather, they should let students know what learning to expect from the reading.

Teachers may be tempted to try to make it easier for students by avoiding difficult texts. The problem is, easier work is less likely to make readers stronger.

You need to create successive successes.

Students experience success in the company of their teacher, who combines complex texts with effective instruction.