Real books still important, says U of L professor

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on March 25, 2025.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The University of Lethbridge will be hosting the final PUBlic Professor Series talk of the season this Thursday, where professor Robin Bright will talk about reading.
Bright, a professor of education at the university, says her talk will provide a snapshot of what reading looks like across Canada, how many people engage in reading on a regular basis, as well as what data shows about Alberta students and reading at schools.
“The purpose is to distinguish between long-form reading and reading that is done more quickly on social media and websites,” says Bright.
She adds that she will showcase the strengths of long-form reading and what people might be giving up when focusing solely on reading online.
Bright explains how she has learned through her research that the act of reading a book is not only much more satisfying than the online experience, but also incredibly beneficial with respect to brain health and development.
“I will talk about kids and adults reading behaviours and what the data shows us about what those behaviours are like, and I want to explore what that means.”
The data she’s using in her talk is coming from a number of pan-Canadian and international studies, which she will combine with the results of her own research and work in schools to present an argument for the enduring power of slow, deliberate reading.
Bright is the author of several books on language and literacy development including, most recently, “Sometimes Reading is Hard: Using Decoding, Vocabulary, and Comprehension Strategies to Inspire Fluent, Passionate, Lifelong Readers.”
Bright says she believes people might be interested to know what the differences are between long-form reading, which involves turning pages on a book, and reading online from their phone or tablets.
“I am excited to talk about what reading is, that it’s about understanding and that a lot of research points to comprehension being stronger with long form reading and retention as well,” says Bright.
Being able to understand why we read will help us will help us make good decisions about whether we read paper copies or online, she says.
“Not all online reading is bad,” she points out. “As a matter of fact, there is a number of new software programs that support reading online.”
She hasn’t seen them used very often, but she believes and hopes that in the future there will be studies on how to make online reading more effective, so people can still develop comprehension and retention skills while reading.
“When we look at the research, what supports the advantages of long-form reading, is being able to flip those pages and refer to things that you’ve looked at and easily being able to find them,” says Bright. “Because the visual images of what that page looked like help you to find that information quickly.”
On the other hand, on a screen the print looks the same from one page to another, which makes it difficult to go back and re-read information that the person might need to understand what they are focused on at the moment.
“I really hope that people take away the idea that reading still matters in our lives, maybe more than ever now, because we need to understand that reading is for slowing down, understanding issues and topics and that is the same even if it’s fiction,” says Bright.
She says that we are moving into such a fast-paced world, where people want information almost instantly, that they are forgetting that to be able to understand what they are reading they need to be patient.
“I will be retiring at the end of June, so to be able to do this talk is truly an honour.”
The event is scheduled for Thursday from 7 -9 p.m. at the Sandman Signature Lodge.
For those who cannot attend, the talk will be available on the University of Lethbridge’s YouTube channel following the presentation.

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