The incorporation of children's digital literature to the classroom library

Abstract

This research explores the possibilities and benefits of integrating digital fiction reading in the classroom's school library. For this purpose, five digital devices were incorporated in a sixth grade classroom with little previous technology exposure, but with daily practice of reading and literaturerelated conversation. Over a five month period, an observation was conducted on the spontaneous reading practices both in free reading time and weekly conversational sessions. The results provide information on the possibility of introducing digital reading, with no decrease in the loss of interest in printed works; the evidence of the tendency to shift reading habits from paper to the screen; the existence of differences between the practices of the strong and weak readers; the incidence of the features and quality of the corpus in preferences and adopted forms of reading; the influence of socialization in the classroom community regarding the conceptualization and assessment of digital reading, as well as the need for specific literary learning to make possible the translation and expansion of the capacity of analysis and artistic assessment of children to new formats.