learning to read

we used to have a very traditional view of reading.  words were printed on a page, we learned phonics to sound out words, site recognition to understand words, we were tested on our comprehension of paragraphs, but reading was relegated to the world of print.  black ink on white pages in bound books.  that was reading.  this type of reading was high tech.  the creation of the guttenburg press introduced the world, civilization, culture to reading.  cultures learned to read the bible. stories once orally recorded in tiny villages now became available to large cities.  men and women in large metropolises like new york read the stories of hunters and gatherers crossing the dessert with limited food and oil.  they were taught to read the words on the page, they were taught to value the words on the page for the message being conveyed.  but how does a desert context of hunters and gatherers apply to a business man or woman, a homemaker, a secretary, a school teacher . . . in a metropolis. the context of the story no longer mattered, or could be imagined based on other printed words.  we learned to read again.  instead of just reading words on a page we learned to cross-reference, to ignore some context and pay attention to other context.  our local stories became important to global markets and our reality of reading changed, but our idea of reading stayed the same.  we continued to see reading as understanding the words on the printed page.  then along came computers.  no longer reading printed text, computers and videogames allow us to read words on a screen, words in a virtual world, words in various sizes, colors, words in various languages mixing.  to understand how the words functioned, to make sense of them reading had to become something more than just understanding words on a page, it had to become understanding words in a situation, and how they were being used in that situation.  so for many (especially elementary education) reading is still understanding printed words on a white paper.  for others reading is making meaning in a context, and reading is no longer just words.  why did it take the invention and widespread use of the internet for us to realize reading has never been just decoding black letters on a white page?