Reading Path

A reading path is a term used by Gunther Kress in Literacy in the New Media Age (2003). According to Kress, a professor of English Education at the University of London, a reading path is the way that the text, or text plus other features, can determine or order the way that we read it. In a linear, written text, the reader makes sense of the text according to the arrangement of the words, both grammatically and syntactically. In such a reading path, there is a sequential time to the text. In contrast, with non-linear text, such as the text found when reading a computer screen, where text is often combined with visual elements, the reading path is non-linear and non-sequential. Kress suggests that reading paths that contain visual images are more open to interpretation and the reader's construction of meaning. This is part of the "semiotic work" that we do as a reader