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Recently, many have released calls for the need to help students evaluate online information. Additionally, many have offered strategies, lists, and other heuristics for helping students evaluate. However, educators lack a method for organizing these various practices into a systematic framework that captures the complex (occurring within online inquiry) and multifaceted (having multiple components) nature of evaluation. Such a framework can guide students as they evaluate information online. The author proposes such a framework that positions readers as proactive judges engaging in iterative evaluation of relevancy and credibility within and across three tiers (content, source, and context) and multiple texts while researching a topic of interest during online research and comprehension. The author also offers three instructional practices for engaging students in the framework, as well as an example of one student using the framework with support from his teacher.

This commentary explores a central issue for our times, online reading comprehension. It first defines three issues that have largely gone unnoticed as the Internet enters our classrooms: (1) literacy has become deictic; (2) effective online information use requires additional online reading comprehension practices, skills, and dispositions; and (3) misalignments in public policy, assessment, and instruction impede our ability to prepare students for the effective use of online information and communication. It analyzes the Common Core State Standards for Reading and Writing in the U. S. and the Australian National Curriculum in relation to elements of online reading comprehension. It argues that continued misalignments especially jeopardize opportunities for those students in districts that are economically challenged.