Reading Practices and Digital Literacies

Here I present a brief report of the focal participants’ reading experiences outside of class

at the time of study. Although an extensive discussion of digital literacies is beyond the scope of the study, the students’ primary literacy practices were digital and apparently quite limited to

social media websites (at least in English) and for this reason they are included here.

5.2.1 Generation 1.5 Students

The generation 1.5 students explained that they read in English primarily for school, for classes where reading was necessary. They did not usually read extensively outside of class, and their reading practices in their L2 consisted mainly of social media and other websites in their L1s (online news for Rachel and teen websites for Joy). Rachel was the only student who mentioned having read a few books in English on own her during high school (e.g., The Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games series), but at the time of the study she said she only read in English when engaging with social media. Jacob also mentioned reading brief information

packets on different soccer teams that his coaches would give the athletes in order to prepare them for games. He explained it as follows,

We are given packets here and that we have to read up. For example for soccer, uh, stuff that, you know, I guess, the, our coach goes out and scouts the other team and then comes back with, like, this stuff and like it tells us who the good players are or what to watch out for (uhum) and all that stuff and it gives us 5, like, 5 to 10 page paper not paper but (packet?) yeah like packet on the opposite team and how we would defend our goal against them. (Jacob, Interview 1)

Other than sending text messages to family members and sometimes reading online blogs, the 1.5 students did not read in their L1s very frequently either. Once again, the exception was Rachel who claimed to read more in her L1, Cantonese, than in English because she was very interested in Hong Kong – where she lived until she moved to the U.S. with her family. She religiously checked online news from Honk Kong, reading various websites daily.

5.2.2 International Students

In a fashion similar to the generation 1.5 students, the international students said they did not enjoy reading either in English or in their L1s. They read in English primarily for class and when browsing the Internet and navigating social media sites, which they used both in their L1s and L2. Though they did not read much or often in their L1s either, they appeared to have more contact with reading in their native languages than the generation 1.5 students. For instance, they frequently searched for summaries online in their L1s of material learned in class and translated vocabulary and sections of readings into their native languages as well. These strategies are further explored in the subsection ‘reading in college’.

5.2.3 Native-Speaking Students

Although the native-speaking students in the study seemed to enjoy reading more than the multilingual students, their literacy stories were quite different, as indicated in Chapter 4, and so were their relationships with reading at the time of the study. Carrie and Tenesha claimed to be

avid readers, having read several books for pleasure when growing up and during their high school years. They were also the only two students in the study who mentioned continuing to engage in more extensive print literacy practices, i.e., reading books, outside of school during the fall. For instance, Carrie mentioned:

I went to library actually just this weekend and um found a really cool book it’s called Creep uh but I don’t who it’s by but um it looked interesting and it’s about this guy who kills this girl that has an affair or something, it’s but um I just got it and I haven’t really gotten any chance to read it. (Carrie, Interview 2)

Tenesha said she read at night before going to bed, which helped her go to sleep. In her words, “I make time [to read for pleasure]. Like late at night when I can’t sleep, it usually puts me right to sleep” (Tenesha, Interview 1).

Dalton often read educational magazines as an adult, and Aaron said he read extensively as a child. However, Aaron explained that he did not read books very frequently anymore because he [was] “used to reading the little short ones [sentences or posts] and keep going”

(Aaron, Interview 2) since he was always engaged with social media as well as text messages (“Social media a lot! A lot of texting, uh, a lot of Twitter.” Aaron, Interview 1). Aaron did not

seem to read other websites frequently, though. For instance, he mentioned that he was a huge college football fan, and when I asked him if he read online news about his team, he said that he did not and only watched it on TV (“L: But do you read anything online [about his team]? Blogs or news? A: Uh…Not really. L: Not really? A: Nah, I watch it on TV so…” (Aaron, Interview 1). Carrie and Tenesha also regularly read text messages and statuses on social media (“Texts, social media, yeah like every day, multiple times a day, Carrie, Interview 1), whereas Dalton had never really been on social media sites (“I’ve never had a Facebook or MySpace. I don’t care.”