Reading to learn

Learning from text has long been a central activity in higher education. While it is doubtless important, there is evidence that the task of ‘reading to learn’ is problematic for students in higher education. The paper pursues a conceptual analysis of what ‘reading to learn’ means in terms of conceptual and strategic knowledge and then explores what intervention could usefully help students to learn more effectively from text. A case is made for ‘reading to learn’ in higher education being viewed as requiring a ‘deep’ approach and that as an aid to, and manifestation of, the intention to interact vigorously with the text, students should be both enabled and required to routinely engage in the summarisation of what they read.