Learner empowerment and lateral reading

  • 8 minutes

Search Coach improves learners' critical thinking when it comes to research and finding source information. These skills can be further supercharged by a simple concept: lateral reading.

When teaching information literacy, it’s no longer sufficient to rely on a website’s domain, About page, or aesthetics to judge its credibility. These features can be deceptive. Research shows that both students and adults often misjudge a site’s trustworthiness based on looks alone—a holdover from the early web. Today, it’s tough to tell if a site is truly neutral or a facade for specific agendas.

Lateral reading, which involves comparing multiple sources to verify information, is a crucial skill for navigating the digital age. This method marks a significant shift from traditional analysis and is vital for both learners and educators to master.

For an introduction to the concept of lateral reading, we encourage you to explore this video (runtime 3 minutes, 33 seconds).

In a Stanford History Education Group study on lateral reading, researchers Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew state that "When reading laterally, one leaves a website and opens new tabs along a horizontal axis in order to use the resources of the Internet to learn more about a site and its claims." Learners discover what other sources have to say about certain articles by opening a new tab. They practice lateral reading by finding important words such as names, organizations, and events on one site and exploring them in new searches.

By teaching strategies like lateral reading, Search Coach empowers learners to build critical thinking skills while using the web as a research tool, preparing them to face future challenges as successful digital citizens.

Lateral reading for smart searching

Just because something is online doesn’t make it official or accurate. It’s important to keep that in mind when you’re searching the Internet—whether it’s for a school project or something in your personal life.

How to read laterally

Instead of just reading a webpage from top to bottom, open new tabs and keep searching!

Check the source

Find the name of the organization that owns the website and the author of the article. Do an Internet search on the names. See what other people said about the company and/or author.

Check for bias

We all have opinions. But opinions are often presented as facts on the Internet. Find out more about the site you’re reading. Does it have an agenda? Why might the authors have written it?

Check the facts

Go back to the webpage/article and look for references to sources where the author got their information. Do new searches on keywords, studies, events, and opinions referenced in this article.

Check for authorities

Try to find information on the topic from official sources like government and educational institutions and neutral fact-checking sites like Snopes.com and Politifact.com.

Learn more about lateral reading