Teaching Reading Comprehension and Critical Thinking Through the Use of Interactive Workbooks

Reading is an ability that has great importance in learning, and this is due to the fact that reading is definitely part of our daily activity, but, most importantly for this study, reading is one of the skills that students have to learn both in English as a foreign language and in their native language. Especially nowadays, a lot of information is conveyed through English, which is now extensively used in social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, and the like. However, reading comprehension both in a native and a foreign language can be challenging for students, especially for young learners. In fact, they must learn to master a series of key skills, like decoding, to fully understand the content of a text. So, reading is a complex process that is based on a number of different skills that lead to the ultimate aim of reading in itself. The present study stems from the teaching activity during the first pandemic wave in Italy in 2020, when schools moved their activities entirely online starting from March to June, and the experimental action research carried out, which involved 10 classes of middle school students aged 11–13, whose level of English ranged from A1 to A2, as expected according to the Italian national indicators. The real challenge was to engage students through online distance learning, trying to overcome the feeling of loneliness given by the lockdown and the isolation perceived in their own room. However, the ultimate aim was also to help students perceive reading as a positive alternative to video gaming and discover the pleasure of reading (Reading for Learning and Extensive Reading) through the use of interactive learning software such as Liveworksheets.