PORTLAND, OREGON—  Research continues to show that students retain and understand information better when reading from paper as opposed to digital screens. A recent University of Valencia analysis of more than two dozen studies on reading comprehension that involved more than 470,000 participants shows that reading for leisure on paper increased reading comprehension by 25 to 35% over reading for leisure online or on a digital device. In May educational neuroscientists at Teachers College, Columbia University published a study that conducted brain imaging of 59 middle-schoolers from New York City after reading text on paper and text on a screen. Following the reading of printed text, brain activations revealed that children had more effectively elaborated their representations of text meanings, and were therefore more able to draw connections with new concepts. Following reading on-screen, the imaging showed the children’s brains had to work harder to build meaningful connections. In other words, medium matters for depth of processing at the level of the brain.