Why is lateral reading important for evaluating online sources?
Objectives
Students will:
Use lateral reading strategies to assess the credibility of a website or online article.
Reflect on how these skills can be applied to schoolwork and real-world decision-making.
Resources
Student Resources
A device with access to the internet
Teacher Resources
A device with access to the internet and way to display to classroom
Pre-selected articles/websites for the Explore section
Anticipate
Ask students:“Have you ever shared or believed something online, only to later find out it wasn’t true?” (Students can raise hands or write privately about what made it seem believable)
Transition: “This happens to all of us. The good news: there are tools that help us check before we trust—one of the most powerful is called lateral reading.”
Engage
Explain: “Most people practice “vertical reading” (staying on the site, reading About pages, looking for internal clues). Historians, journalists, and fact-checkers read laterally—they leave the site, open new tabs, and check what other sources say.”
Model lateral reading live: Have students choose a topic or select one in advance, find a website that features an article about the topic. Examples can include a current event topic or a historic event.
Open a new tab and search for the website that you read the article on. Find a different site that gives details about the first site, who runs it, and what their perspectives/biases may be.
Read aloud the first couple of results.
Narrate your thought process: “Oh, this site is run by [organization/person]. That gives me a clue about their perspective.”
Look for coverage in other sources.
Type “[site name] credibility” or “[site name] bias.”
Show students how media bias/fact-check sites or trusted journalism cover it. Ask students to consider that these sites may also have their own biases too, and how they may work to find what these biases are and how it impacts how the information is presented.
Check authorship/funding.
If there’s a named author, search the person too.
Narrate: “I want to know who this person is and why they might write this.”
Wrap the model.
Say: “We now have an idea that this site is [biased/credible/]. That’s the power of lateral reading—you don’t stay on the site, you branch out to see what the wider web says.”
Explore
Divide students into pairs or small groups. Give each group a different website/article (a mix of credible, biased, and unreliable sources). Examples could include:
A government or university site (.gov, .edu)
A news source with mixed reputation
A think tank or advocacy group
A misleading but polished site (e.g., one with pseudoscience or extreme bias)
Task: Use lateral reading (search about the site, check its reputation, see what fact-checkers say) to decide: “Can this site be trusted? For what purposes?”
Ask questions such as “Who’s behind the site? What do others say about it? Would you use this for a research paper?”
Each group shares their findings quickly.
As a class, discuss:
What strategies worked best?
How did your impression change once you looked outside the site?
How will you use lateral reading in your own research or daily media use?
Assess & Reflect
Students complete an exit ticket:
“Imagine you’re writing a paper and find a website with surprising information. What’s the first thing you would do using lateral reading to check its credibility?”
“Before today, how did you usually decide if a site was trustworthy? What will you do differently now?”
Extend (Optional)
Challenge students to find their own media source (article, video clip, social media post) that they can investigate through lateral reading.
