Why digital natives need books: The myth of the digital native

This article is concerned with children’s reading development in the important years from when they begin learning to read to the age when the child reaches adequate reading comprehension to read to learn from a variety of texts on diverse subjects. Like any skill, reading skill requires relevant and extensive training. We have tended to think that children growing up in the digital era get plenty reading training from digital devices and that this is as efficient as reading books was for earlier generations. Due to this optimism, we have paid too little attention to whether extensive use of digital devices actually provide children with relevant reading training during the important years that efficient reading is developed. The author holds that book reading still has its place in education.