1. Critical Reading - They don’t read
do they?
Sandra Sinfield - LDU – LearnHigher
CETL and LDHEN
March 2007

2. London Met – reading reading
Why students are not reading
What’s it for – why do we want our students to
read?
Range of practical activities to encourage
reading – thinking - writing

3. Why some don’t read
Lack cultural capital
Lack of academic capital
Studying seen as part time
Students read less than they did
Sheer amount of information…
Shift to modularity – more reading expected of less inducted
students with less time
Subjects seen as vocational rather than academic
Implicit HE curriculum: need to make explicit what we mean by
taken for granted practices – need to embed opportunities for
students to develop academic practices in the curriculum.

4. What’s it for?
Reading – what do we want?
What are we testing? The ability to find difficult
sources? The discovery of obscure texts? Quantity
read? Reading for meaning? Reading for critical
engagement?
Acknowledge time constraints: specify, photocopy…
Make space for reading and reading related activities
http://www.publishinghub.net/

5. Reading within the curriculum
Brainstorm:
Why do we read?
How do we know what to read?
How can we read effectively?
How much should we read?
Discuss with group – acknowledge reading is difficult – but
gets easier with practice

6. Model it!
Discuss your reading – it is difficult for
everyone!
Set student pairs/groups a text to read in class
Textmapping can help:
http://www.textmapping.org/using.html
Model reading yourself in class – breaking text
into chunks – use of skim and scan & in depth:

7. Active, interactive & critical reading strategy
For EACH significant section:
What is this paragraph about?
Where is the writer coming from?
Who would agree/disagree with this position?
What is the argument? Who would dis/agree?
What is the evidence? Is it valid? How do you know?
Annotations – marginalia - short notes.
TIP: index cards of all sources – re-cycle reading

8. Link to writing:
We feel that students ‘cannot write’ because
they do not read!
Hence increase in plagiarism?
Possibly link reading strategy to writing strategy
‘The paragraph as dialogue’

9. Writing questions:
What is this paragraph about?
What exactly is that?
What is your argument? (Tell me more)
What is the evidence (for & against)?
What does it mean?
How does this relate back to the question as a
whole?

10. Make reading necessary
Read this & come to seminar with:
Three words that describe how it made you feel
A bare bones summary (25 words)
A visual summary
One question that you would ask the author
An object that represents something from the text – to
discuss
A one minute presentation
& value the effort that is put in when it is.

11. Emergency tactic:
When half of them have not read the set text:
Get everyone to select one sentence from the text that
they have found meaningful (a main point or an idea
with which to argue) – they then write this on a post-it or
on the whiteboard and say why they chose it. The ones
who did read make an informed choice – others have to
busk it… An interesting discussion ensues – and may
be they all read next time.

12. Research
Encourage your students to participate in the
LearnHigher research project exploring reading:
http://www.surveymonkey
.com/s.asp?u=268963177707
Contact Sandra Sinfield s.sinfield@
londonmet.ac.uk for more information.