Experts figure that kids today read and write even more than previous generations. And they do so in a broader and more complex environment — though not always in academic ways.

Mastering the technical aspects of multimedia tools is essential. And both reading and writing in the digital world demand a more collaborative approach, played out before an ever-widening audience equipped for rapid-fire feedback.

f we don't start helping kids to slow down and think, they could get overwhelmed and not read deeply at all," says Julie Coiro, an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island who specializes in new literacies and online reading comprehension. "I think there should be very much a conscious, strategic moving back and forth between rapid locating (of information) and deep reading."