About this region

What Hands May Tell Us about Reading and Writing

Source Information

August 2016, Volume66(Issue4)Pages457To477 - Educational Theory

Download Options

Cite

My Articles

Additional Article Information

Article stats

Permalink

Preservation Status

Report a problem

Report a problem

Abstract

Abstract

Reading and writing are increasingly performed with digital, screen‐based technologies rather than with analogue technologies such as paper and pen(cil). The current digitization is an occasion to “unpack,” theoretically and conceptually, what is entailed in reading and writing as embodied, multisensory processes involving audiovisual and ergonomic interaction with devices having particular affordances. Highlighting the sensorimotor contingencies of substrates and technologies — how movement and object manipulation affect perception, experience, and sensory “feel” — this article presents an embodied approach to reading, writing, and literacy, using three cases of digitization as illustrations of some educational implications: (1) beginning writing by hand or by keyboard; (2) dialogic reading with iPads and print picture books in kindergarten; and (3) deep reading of long, linear texts on paper and on screens.

Keywords