{"id":8931,"date":"2021-12-07T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/?p=8931"},"modified":"2025-02-24T13:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T13:48:09","slug":"active-reading-five-ways-to-engage-students-in-the-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/2021\/12\/07\/active-reading-five-ways-to-engage-students-in-the-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Active Reading: Five ways to engage students in their reading"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thankyou for reading this EE blog, this post is representative at the time it was written. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There is a lot of talk about Active Learning and the importance of learning by doing, but isn\u2019t reading a kind of doing? In my mind it is, but I am reminded too that research by Bartholomae, Petrosky & Waite (2017) suggests that real learning happens, \u2018only when the authors are silent and you begin to speak in their place\u2019 (page 272). So, as educators we have two key responsibilities related to reading, one is in setting the reading lists, and the other is to provide spaces for students to use the meaning of the text in their own contexts i.e.<\/em> speak in the place of the texts. This might be where Active Reading comes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Active reading is a strategy of reading to understand and evaluate a text. It has been found to increase the joy people experience in reading, even amongst those who have found it a chore in the past (Tovoli, 2014). Here are five strategies for encouraging students to take an active approach to their reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Active reading strategies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are a number of different active reading strategies we can use with our students, helping them engage with their readings. If applied correctly they may help address some of the concerns brought up in the decolonising the curriculum agenda, by making reading relevant to personal contexts. The following is a non-exhaustive list of the kind of engagement we might ask our student to have with the reading:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Reflecting on texts. <\/strong>Texts usually say different things to different people. One way to open up dialogue between students, who might otherwise be worried that they have misunderstood it, is to ask them to reflect on a text and to speak about it in the context of their own personal histories and experiences.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    1. Making connections between texts.<\/strong> Texts often support or contradict other texts. Asking students to compare and build connections between texts can help them to be more critical.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      1. Reading texts with purpose.<\/strong> Texts infer meaning. Asking students to read the text whilst considering what it means in other contexts can help students see how what they learnt from the text can be used in other scenarios and spaces.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
        1. Creating visualisations of texts.<\/strong> Sometimes you can build pictures in your mind\u2019s eye as you read a text. Asking students to share those pictures can increase their ability to recall the messages within it.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
          1. Evaluating texts.<\/strong> Part of understanding a text is coming to understand their origins and credibility. Researchers have devised the CRAAP test<\/a> in order to understand the value of a text. The acronym, apart from misspelling a rude, but relevant word, encourages the students to consider: