Most college courses have reading assignments at their core. Reading textbooks, articles, websites and other documents are often required for students to be the most successful that they can be in a college course. But many faculty share that they struggle to get students to complete the assigned readings. While this may be an ever present challenge for all instructors at any level of teaching in any discipline, we have a few tips for how to encourage your students to complete the reading assignments in your course.
Be transparent with your reason for including the reading.
Students are sometimes left wondering why a reading assignment has been included. It can be helpful to be transparent about why you chose it. Is the author a leading professional in the field? Is the content of the piece directly related to a specific topic in the module or lesson content? Tell your students what the connection is. It can be very helpful to explain how the reading connects to the course learning goals, which can help students feel more motivated to complete the reading.
Provide students with strategies to guide their approach to their reading.
Depending on the type of reading (an article, a book chapter, a website) different reading strategies can help students to glean the concepts you hope they will learn, but many students lack the skills needed to tackle college level reading assignments. Related to this, you may have different expectations for student comprehension of various readings in your course. For one reading assignment, you may be expecting students to be able to summarize the high level concepts. For another reading assignment, you may be expecting students to know several very specific points from the piece. It can be helpful to students if you explain your expectation for what they will learn from the reading by providing a notes handout or guiding questions that they can use to take notes. These types of reading guides serve two purposes. (1) It helps give students an understanding of the expected level of understanding you want them to take away from the reading while (2) it also scaffolds the reading for students by guiding their reading.
If you don’t necessarily want to create a specific handout for each individual reading assignment, encourage students to use good reading/note-taking strategies for all of the readings. One technique is to encourage students to use a Connect, Question, Summarize method. For every reading assignment, tell students that they should take notes on a connection they have to the text, a question they would like to ask about it, and a short summary of the text. This can then form the basis for a class discussion. Another idea is to ask students to compile these notes in an on-going notes document that they then share with you for a completion grade.
By providing students with strategies to approach their reading, whether that means providing a notes guide or a general way to approach their reading, students will be more likely to complete reading assignments.
Use tech tools to make reading social.
Penn State has several tools that allow students to co-annotate a text, which makes the act of reading a more social experience. Perusall is an online social annotation platform that allows students to add highlighting, comments, and more to a shared document. (Bonus: Perusall also works with other course content including web pages, videos, podcasts, and images!)
By creating a space where students can begin to comment on an assigned reading, students often feel more motivated to complete the reading. Additionally, Perusall can help students to learn from each other if they are struggling with a section of the reading that is challenging or confusing because they can ask their peers.
The use of Perusall in the classroom was the topic of an Instructor Day 2022 session titled, From Gen Ed To Grad School: Active Reading With Perusall. Click the link to watch a recording of the session
Hold students accountable for the reading.
Another way to encourage student reading is to hold them accountable by tying assessments to the reading assignments. Short quizzes or writing assignments can be used to ensure students are reading. You can ask students to answer a few questions about the reading via a multiple choice quiz. In the online world, these quizzes can be used to keep content locked in Canvas, meaning students cannot move on with other module content until they have completed the quiz.
Reading assignments are an important part of learning. With a few small shifts in teaching strategies, you can help to motivate students to complete their reading. Have you found a way to motivate students to read? Please share it with us!
Sources
Hattenberg, S. J., and Steffy, K. (2013). Increasing reading compliance of undergraduates: An evaluation of compliance methods. Teaching Sociology, 41(4), 346–352.
Kelly, K. (2015). Teaching with technology: Getting students to do the reading. Linkedin Learning.
Kerr, M. M., & Frese, K. M. (2017). Reading to learn or learning to read? Engaging college students in course readings. College Teaching, 65(1), 28-31. doi:10.1080/87567555.2016.1222577
Mason, W. & Warmington, M. (2022). If you want students to read more, consider asking them to read less. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/if-you-want-students-read-more-consider-asking-them-read-less#comments
