practice their word recognition (Stern, 2014). These features can reduce the cognitive load on early or striving readers, allowing them to learn about the content while simultaneously building literacy skills. Other features, such as the zoom-in and -out feature, allow accessibility for students who may require larger print or who want to closely examine the details of a photo or image. The sticky-note and highlight functions may assist students in recording notes and observations about the text or help them to identify specific content—providing scaffolding for skills such as identifying the main idea or locating text to support a specific point of view or argument (Bus, Takacs, & Kegel, 2015). As students live and are educated in environments rich in multimedia, an emerging role for educators today is to serve as mixed-media curators by providing content that is relevant and age appropriate in multiple formats. Digital magazines are unique in that their content is organized and tagged, increasing efficiency in locating content on a specific topic. Educators can use digital versions of Scholastic magazines to curate content, texts, and digital activities from one or multiple magazine offerings that are directly linked to the theme under discussion and that can help educators better target learning objectives. Additionally, “by reading content in a digital magazine format, students can relate the class theory to current events by using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, which allows them to develop a deeper understanding of the class topics” (Luna-Nevarez & McGovern, 2018, p. 18). The use of digital magazines, such as Scholastic Magazines+, and related resources (e.g. videos, digital activities) can enhance student engagement and skill building while offering students a blended literacy experience to further support their learning. Digital tools available to educators, such as the ability to curate information on specific topics, and readily available literary supports, such as key word definitions, further support learning objectives and make for a rich classroom resource.
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