Improving Reading Comprehension: Meeting Students Where They Are

Today students read more than ever—but they read differently than past generations (Warner 2025, Ch. 9) and typically do not read for pleasure (Astor 2025). According to recent research, most students receive little, if any, reading skills development after the age of 10, meaning they are reading to learn without correspondingly learning to read (Goldstein 2025). When students arrive at college, they are introduced to new forms of reading. This means incoming college students need to be actively taught how to read and comprehend texts in ways that align with their field of study. But why and how? 

What’s Reading Comprehension, Anyway?

Comprehension vs. Fluency 

Reading comprehension is not synonymous with reading fluency. Reading fluency is one’s “ability to read quickly and accurately without paying conscious attention to individual words” (Hubbard 2021; Klauda & Guthrie 2008). That is, it defines one’s ability to make out individual words and sentences in a given text. Reading comprehension, in contrast, concerns the “extraction of meaning from a text.” It revolves around understanding concepts, methods, and arguments (Hubbard 2021). Reading comprehension is the collection of interrelated skills and prior knowledge that enables students to analyze complex readings (Duke et al. 2021). 

Why Students Struggle with Comprehension 

There are several reasons students may struggle to comprehend class readings, including, but not limited to: 

• Time: Students have many obligations and often take heavy course loads, as well as working part- or full-time. Reading for comprehension can be a time-consuming endeavor, leading students to either skip or not read carefully. 
• Distractions: When students cannot focus for long enough on a piece of writing, it becomes difficult for them to comprehend the meaning and importance of any given text (Lang 2020). 
• Remembering what we read: It can be difficult for students to remember what they read long-term, especially when there is no clear purpose or reason why they might need to carry these concepts forward. 
• Lack of Disciplinary/Academic Literacy: Students are often unfamiliar with the disciplinary genres and may not know field-specific jargon, making it difficult to grasp meaning in texts. 
• Identity/Reading Disconnect: Students’ personal values shape how they engage with readings, and when students feel disconnected with readings they are less likely to engage in ways that improve comprehension (Artze-Vega et al. 2023). 

Cultivating Comprehension: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension Skills

There are a variety of strategies you can use to help students cultivate their comprehension skills before, during, and after reading. 

Before Reading 

• Clarify Purpose: Before reading, give learners a better sense of why you selected a reading and its purpose in the course. Clearly identifying and discussing the purpose can also act as a guide to what concepts and ideas are most relevant. 
• Create a Culture of Reading: Set the stage for students and give them a sense of how reading is a communal act. This means being vulnerable about readings (you don’t have to understand or master everything) and compassionate with students in their efforts to process difficult texts. 

During Reading 

• THIEVES (Title, Heading, Introduction, Every first sentence, Visual/Vocabulary, End of Text, Summary): This approach to reading treats readings as a checklist and helps students identify them. The acronym THIEVES, stands for: title, headings, introduction, every first sentence, visuals (i.e. graphics and diagrams), end of text, and summary (a.k.a synthesis). 
• SQ3R (Survey/Skim, Question, Read, Recite, Review): This is a variation of the 3R’s method of reading. Before reading, quickly preview the text (survey/skim) and develop a few questions to guide your reading (question). Students then annotate the text to identify key ideas and concepts (read). Once they finish, they either write down the main ideas or recite them in their own words (recite). Finally, after reading, students return to the text and notes they took to refresh themselves on big ideas and concepts (review). 

After Reading 

• Classroom Assessment Techniques: These are instructional strategies that help assess the current level of understanding of a given topic. Known as CATs, these strategies can help identify what learners do and do not know of a specific subject. For more details and examples, see this page. 
• Active Learning Techniques: These are instructional strategies designed to engage students in the learning process and avoid passive interaction. For more detail and examples, see this page. 

Want to learn more about cultivating reading comprehension? Register to participate in CITL’s upcoming workshop, Improving Reading Comprehension: Why Students Struggle & What You Can Do on Thursday 9/18 from 2:00-3:30pm in the CITL Workshop Room (Wells Library E243). For more resources on reading and comprehension, see my colleague’s CITL blog posts—such as “Reading: The Partner of Good Writing,” “How can I support and encourage my students to complete course readings?,” and “How to learn more about your students’ reading motivation, practices, and comprehension”—that give more detail on these subjects, among others.