As with writing skills, integrating reading skills into your teaching does not require you to explicitly address all of the skills your students need in any one class. Rather, it means creating space in your course to address one or two skills that you identify as the most essential as they come up in the regular work of your course. 

The steps below address some of the general ways you can scaffold reading assignments so that reading skills become an explicit part of the course instruction. In most cases, we’ve included one or two explicit examples of each technique, to give you some ideas for how they might work in practice.

  1. Explain Why Each Text is on the Syllabus

Clearly articulate the purpose of each reading you assign. What will it add to the course conversation? How will you use or address it in class? How does it inform or connect to other texts on the syllabus? Note that you don’t necessarily need to put these explanations in writing on the syllabus itself–you can simply say them in class. However, it’s almost always best to explain this before you expect students to do the reading in question.

  1. Establish Basic Expectations for Each Reading

Set clear expectations regarding how long each reading should take and how students can know if they’ve read or understood it well enough. This is especially important for readings that you expect students to struggle with or spend a significant amount of time completing.

Specific Techniques:

  • Note on the syllabus how long each reading should take to complete well
  • Provide study questions students can fill out as they read or just after they’ve finished reading
  1. Present Reading Strategies in Class

Identify the reading skills or strategies that are most relevant to the work in your class and explicitly address them in class.

Specific Techniques:

  • The first time you discuss a text from an unfamiliar genre (e.g. a scholarly article), discuss the conventions of that genre and how that should affect the way students read it
  • Point out particularly difficult passages in the text and discuss how students should understand or unpack them
  • Explain how students can annotate a text to make it more useful for class discussion or for late writing assignments
  1. Assign a “Teaching Text” Early in the Term

A teaching text is a specific reading assignment that you’ll use to model the kinds of reading you’ll expect students to do independently throughout the term. The idea is to assign your teaching text early–ideally in the first week or two of class–and then spend some time in class specifically discussing how that text is structured and how your students should engage it.

An Ideal Teaching Texts Is:

  • Similar in structure and purpose to other texts students will encounter in your course
  • Challenging for students to navigate
  • Likely to come up again throughout the term (thus rewarding students for the time and effort they spend with it)
  1. Ask Students about Their Reading

As part of your regular class discussion, ask students about their experiences reading the material at hand. What aspects were easy or difficult? This isn’t the same as simply asking, “are there any questions about the reading?” at the start of class. Students who aren’t doing the reading well often don’t realize it, and even students who know they’re struggling often have difficulty articulating questions. Instead, pose questions that elicit a critical response, even (or especially) if students believe they did the reading well.

Specific Questions:

  • What were the key ideas of this piece, and where specifically did you find them?
  • What passages did you find most interesting or useful?
  • What parts did you find yourself skimming or skipping altogether?
  • What terms did the author(s) use that were new to you? How did you figure out what they meant?
  • How long did you spend on this reading? (Asking this will also help you assess whether your expectations are too low and whether or not students are taking your expectations seriously.)
  1. Assess Reading Directly

Incorporate low-stakes assessments that allow you to see (and, ideally, respond to) how well students are completing the reading.

Specific Techniques:

  • Reading quizzes
  • Short, informal response papers (completed in or out of class)
  • Annotation assignments (possibly using tools like Hypothes.is)
  • Self-assessment exercises like this one from Adrianna Estill
  1. Make Reading Reflective

Prompt your students to critically examine their reading skills and habits. Ideally, make this an iterative part of the course, where students are able to see and examine the way their reading changes as they get more experienced navigating the course material.

Specific Techniques:

  • Bookend Assignments: assign a short essay at the beginning of the term asking students to describe the ways that they approach reading for class, with an emphasis on the skills you’ll address that term (parsing difficult passage, skimming, annotating, etc.). At the end of the term, assign a similar essay asking students to describe how their reading processes held up or changed.
  • Reading Journals: have students write a short paragraph after they complete every major reading, describing how they approached it and what they found interesting, important, challenging, etc. 
  • Check-Ins: regularly ask the students to report on how long the reading is taking them and how difficult they’re finding it. Check-ins can take a variety of forms, from a few informal questions at the start of class to anonymous posts to a class discussion board. They work best, though, when you make it clear that you’re really interested in their responses and willing to respond to their concerns.
  • Here’s another example from Adrianna Estill.
  1. Normalize Learning and Difficulty

Create an environment where struggling with difficult texts is seen as a normal and welcome part of the class discourse. This approach helps to demystify reading skills (and academic work in general) and reduce student anxiety. It also encourages students to see reading as a skill set that grows and develops over time, so that even proficient students are encouraged to look for ways to improve. 

Specific Techniques:

  • Explicitly encourage and praise students who ask comprehension questions or articulate challenges with the reading.
  • Whenever possible, don’t simply answer comprehension questions. Instead, point the class to clues in the text and try to work out the answer as a group.
  • Ask the students to identify difficult passages, concepts, or questions in the reading and work through them in class.
  • Discuss places where you personally found the reading difficult, or aspects of the reading that you noticed or re-evaluated when re-reading for class (especially when you realize that you misunderstood or misinterpreted something).
  • Acknowledge and praise students when they articulate new and interesting responses to the text or when they spot something you hadn’t noticed before.
  • Instead of asking questions to the class as a whole, “cold call” individual students, whether they’ve volunteered or not. Yes, really! Many instructors are reluctant to do this, but studies indicate that as long as you use this practice consistently and fairly (i.e. randomize who you call on) throughout the term, students don’t mind, and it actively improves their engagement and preparation. Moreover, it means that the most prepared (or just the most loquacious) students don’t do all the talking while students who are less prepared–who may have genuinely productive questions, concerns, or observations–hide in silence.