A Systematic Review of Online Multimodal Reading Strategies

This systematic review synthesizes educational research on online multimodal reading strategies, defined as a reader’s goal-directed efforts to construct meaning from multimodal texts on the Internet. These texts integrate multiple modes of meaning, such as visuals, audio, video, and written language, requiring complex cognitive and strategic processing. The strategies identified and categorized in this review include understanding modes, multimodal searching, multimodal evaluation, mode selection, multimodal navigation, and multimodal prior knowledge use. Additionally, this review examines how these strategies influence readers’ comprehension of multimodal texts. Findings highlight the emerging research at the intersection of online reading, multimodality, and reading strategy, and offer implications for instructional practices in teaching online multimodal literacy.