6 Reading in LEH 250 and College

About reading

Reading is more than a simple activity- it is one that you (and your students) have been working on for many years. That said, most students in the United States do not have reading instruction beyond third or fourth grade, when they move from learning to read to reading to learn. This can lead to adults who still use straegies and patterns they adopted when they were very young (like nine or ten years old). Believe it or not, most popular sources (like the New York Times) are written for individuals who have a reading level between eighth and tenth grade, and knowing that can help you gauge how your students are doing.

Reading has 2 major parts, and there is no such thing as “just a bad reader.” Reading is a skill and all college students have the ability to improve their reading abilities.

Word recognition

This is the ability to identify and understand words:It includes:

• Decoding: your knowledge of letter sounds and how to work with unfamiliar words)
• Phonological awareness: Your  awareness of and ability to work with sounds in spoken language
• Sight recognition

Language Comprehension

This is the ability to make meaning from the words you read. It includes::

• Literacy knowledge: what you know about types of readings
• Verbal reasoning: your familiarity with literary devices (like inference and metaphor), including identifying them and interpreting them
• Language structure: your understanding of how language is arranged, how words are organized, and what they mean based on this
• Vocabulary: the words you know and can use
• Background knowledge:  the facts, theories, and ideas you know (or need to know) about the topic

A weakness in one area can look like “poor reading” and can lead to frustration and demotivation. Identifying what skills need strengthening can help learners read effectively and confidently.

Two areas that we need to address in college learning–regardless of student or class content area– are vocabulary and background knowledge.

Beyond reading skills, your students may have issues of motivation and persistence.  These issues are different and require different strategies. For example, a student may not be able to read due to the environment they are in, or because they are easily distracted, or because they do not understand the purpose of the reading. On the surface, a student not completing the reading may seem to be unmotivated when in fact, it is an issue within their environment or in their workflow. You don’t know- and may not be able to help- until you know what is going on.

If a student shares that they are struggling with reading, it makes sense to talk with them about what they are experiencing.

Supporting your students in readings means helping them identify what strengths they have and what areas of challenge they want to improve. Students may already know what is happening and need help figuring out what to do. You might also involve the first-year specialists, our academic coach, or the ISSP in supporting the student.

About college reading

College places new demands on reading. A college student is expected to:

• Read independently
• Read at length
• Read with understanding
• Read with critical thinking

Faculty in college assign readings and expect that students will read them, without guidance or questions. This can be challenging if the material is new or the vocabulary is unfamiliar, While textbooks are written with the intent of mitigating these issues (because they are written to learn from), students do need to be able to read authentic texts, which do not have this type of structure. How faculty use readings can differ widely.  Some instructors assign readings and do not discuss them or use them in class. At the other extreme, some instructors lecture about the topics in the reading ( this can be helpful when students do not read but also problematic for students who do the reading and feel like they could have waited for lecture).

College students are expected to be able to read many pages quickly each week. If a full-time student is taking 5 classes, they could be assigned anywhere from 10 to 100 pages per class per week. Few students are prepared for this workload, and students will often not be able to do the readings when there is such a heavy demand. One way to manage this is to ask students to help you decide what is a reasonable request for reading per week or when a reading should be due.

The point of reading is to learn. Many readings in classes are informational, and students are expected to use those readings to understand content, the world around them, and themselves. Others are works of literature or philosophy.  The first step is understanding what the reading has to say. Students are expected to understand readings, and many students are not sure that they do. Doing a knowledge check to ensure that students know what they read (not to ensure that they read, which is a compliance measure), is important and can be a quiz, writing assignment, class discussion, or activity.

Taking anything at face value can be problematic- and with the amount of readings and resources available to our students, the ability to think critically about what was read is critical. Students in younger grades may have learned to “talk back to the text” and reminding them that they should not blindly agree with an author or take what they have to say as truth without thinking about it and how it fits with other knowledge and experiences they have is a good start to building critical thinking skills that span many types of content.

As an instructor, you can help students build their own reading skills by explaining and modeling your academic reading.

Supporting your students while they read

Your students bring a lifetime of reading beliefs and behaviors with them to college. These beliefs and behaviors shape how they approach reading in their everyday life and in their academic work. All students could use support and assistance with college reading. They will be reading new materials, for different purposes than they have before and working with unfamiliar content and vocabulary. (Or they may think the content and vocabulary are familiar when in fact, they need to relearn the content in a new way and work with words that have different or more complex meanings).

But wait, I’m not a reading instructor? That’s okay—you don’t need to be. Your students are adults, and while they need support in the transition to college, they usually have strong ideas about what assistance they need. Most students I’ve worked with can identify what reading area they need help with and then can use online resources and the ISSP for support.

If you want to work on reading in your class—and I strongly hope you do—consider using Excelsior College’s Online Reading Comprehension Lab. https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/ It has resources and interactive activities that can help students quickly improve their reading habits and behaviors. Chapter

Just a quick note: Many of our students are multilingual. This is a strength- but when it comes to reading, it can affect their reading speed and comprehension. Many multilingual learners already have great habits for new vocabulary and may need your support and encouragement as they approach college academic readings.

General reading assignments

Notes

Have students take individual notes on readings. Consider providing a framework for note-taking (like a graphic organizer) or modeling the note-taking you expect. There are formal note-taking strategies you can introduce as well based on what you think your students need. Also, you likely do want to make sure students know that note taking for readings is different than note-taking for lectures (consider discussing both when applicable in class).

Social annotation

Post a copy of the reading that students can comment on. They can add questions or mark things that are missing or need clarification. They can comment on things that CONFIRM or CONTRADICT their experiences, CONFUSE them and need clarification, CLARIFY or answer a question that they’ve had, or where they CONNECT with an idea in a reading Having students identify unfamiliar words or key ideas can also be helpful.

Be sure to tell students expectations regarding the comments they made (including how many they need to make).

Reflection (short essays or videos)

You might decide to have students keep a reading journal,, where they write answers to specific questions after each chapter or reading. You’ll see some ideas for this below.