3 Habits Students Can Develop to Find Credible Online Resources

From the misinformation on the web, the echo chambers of social media, and the clutter of a Google search, to the promise and perils of AI, today our kids are stumbling their way through a dense jungle that often misleads more than it enlightens. Teachers see it, and we worry: Can our students tell what’s true from what’s not?

Although we do not have much say in our students watching dance videos on TikTok or watching gamers playing competitive video games on social media in their free time, at least in school there is a way to help our students find their way through what they read on the internet.

The Research Behind Navigating the Web

Prominent among those striving to help teachers guide students through online misinformation is Sam Wineburg, professor emeritus at Stanford University. Wineburg, along with his colleagues at Civic Online Reasoning, has developed free lessons and tools to teach children how to fact-check what they read on the internet. These tools are based on how professional fact-checkers judge credibility on the web and make it simple and practical for our students.

As a researcher and scholar, Wineburg addressed the challenge of navigating the internet with an evidence-based approach. His research on how fact-checkers differ from most of us in verifying content on the web offers important directions for us as we guide our students in today’s digital world.

Wineburg’s research revealed a crucial lesson: Even highly educated people can be misled online. In an age of endless scrolling, wisdom often lies not in how deeply you read a single page, but in where you click next.

Here are three ways educators can help their students navigate the internet.

1. Teaching Students to Ask, ‘Who’s Behind the Information?’

Back in the day, we taught students to look at the author’s name and publisher. Today, a site with a great-sounding name may be run by a fringe group; a website may look like news but come from a commercial site or a troll farm. The .com/.org distinction no longer holds much meaning—some reliable sites are .coms, while anyone can get a .org.

Before accepting what they read, students must learn to ask: What is the source of this information? We can help our students answer that question with lateral reading.

2. Teaching Students to Read Laterally on the Web, Not Vertically

The internet isn’t a library with tidy shelves and trustworthy labels, but a jungle with many competing sounds. Research indicates that many students, and adults, if they try to judge a source’s credibility at all, often stay on the site and click the “About” page and look for grammar mistakes.

But Wineburg found that when verifying information on a webpage, fact-checkers jump off the page immediately. They open new tabs, do a web search of the source, and see what others say about it. That’s lateral reading, and it’s one of the most powerful moves we can teach our children. It’s very simple and practical; just open new tabs to learn about the source. They might, for example, put in the name of the original site they wish to judge, followed by the term “fact check” or “credibility check.”

And in those new tabs, sites that students already know can be helpful, such as Wikipedia and Google itself, when used judiciously.

Wikipedia is not the enemy. In fact, it’s one of the best places to begin lateral reading. Claims are footnoted. Submissions and edits are tracked. In lateral reading, opening a Wikipedia tab to discover the organization behind an article or post is not the end of the search, but it can be a crucial first step.

These days, when questions arise, the reply often comes not with reflection but reflex: “Google it.”

Google is a powerful tool, but its power is often misunderstood. Students and adults alike tend to treat it as a trusted referee, assuming the top results are the most accurate or credible. Professional fact-checkers know better. What sets them apart is a habit of “click restraint”; they don’t pounce on the first link that shows up in a Google search. Instead, they scan results, read the brief descriptions, and often click the three vertical dots beside a result to learn more about the site.

3. Teaching Habits of Mind, Not Checklists

A few years back, checklists sprouted up, well-meaning tools meant to help students judge what they saw online. They were sincere efforts, but taught kids to ask the wrong questions for today’s internet: Is the site recent? Does it look professional? Are there grammatical errors? Is it a .com or .org?

Professional fact-checkers, by contrast, don’t use checklists. Referring to his research on fact-checkers and checklists, Wineburg noted, “When confronted by new information on an unfamiliar website, fact-checkers almost instantaneously left the site and read laterally.”

To help students develop lateral reading as a habit of mind, I recommend teachers spend time with the Digital Inquiry Group’s Civic Online Reasoning (COR) website as well as Wineburg and researcher Mike Caulfield’s book, Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions About What to Believe Online. COR offers free lessons you can use with your students, and both resources provide parents and teachers with practical strategies to help students evaluate information effectively.

Although I have not used it with students, the site Checkology also offers teachers ready-made lessons, tools, and ideas for helping our kids navigate today’s internet. Checkology is created by the News Literacy Project, and I used lateral reading to check both. My own searches led me to conclude that both are highly credible.

With tools such as these, our students grow more questioning, slower to believe what they read on the internet, and quicker to verify. These steps do not require a new curriculum or checklists; rather, they require us to teach students to pause, to open new tabs, and to ask who’s behind the information. If we can pass that method on, our students won’t just be better at spotting misinformation. They’ll be better thinkers and more deliberate consumers of web information.