Despite the importance of these skills for academic success, professors seldom teach them (Bean, 1996).
They generally take them for granted, as they tend to presuppose that all students already acquired these skills either as part of their secondary education or elsewhere in college (Erickson, Peters & Strommer, 2006). The reality is that most first-year students lack academic reading skills, especially because University-level reading greatly differs from High School reading. Thus, most students employ non university strategies to read academic texts, which results in students taking a surface approach to reading.
The objective of this paper is to discuss some strategies, examples, and resources aimed at promoting students to take a deep approach to reading. The major tenet of this article is that if teachers explicitly teach students how to read academic texts in aligned courses where students have ample opportunities to engage in reading activities throughout the term, students are more likely to adopt a deep approach to reading.