As students continue to progress through school, reading material becomes increasingly more difficult while comprehension can decline. There’s a variety of theories and techniques to address reading comprehension at the K-12 level with blogs being one of the latest tactics to consider.
Technology intrinsically motivates students. It’s familiar to them and gives students a chance to take control of their learning paths. Blogs can motivate students to take their reading more seriously.
Students also can uncover a new level of respect for what happens in the classroom through the peer interaction within a blog community. They have more freedom to share their thoughts and can come to conclusions with help from their peers in ways that aren’t possible with pen and paper.
The last factor to keep in mind are the social interactions, which are no longer limited to face-to-face encounters. The social aspects of blogs give students an opportunity to experience learning in ways more familiar to them. Reading and commenting on blogs becomes an activity that closely mirrors reading and responding to an article or post on Facebook or another social network.
Now, of course, blogs has a certain level of informality attached to them. The goal is just to get students in the habit of reading and writing more to improve comprehension. It’s still important to teach students the formalities of grammar, style and organization, but do it in a way more familiar to them.