Do your students really need to read before class?

Many years ago, a colleague of mine, frustrated with his students’ lack of preparation for class, would occasionally come into class and ask the students to raise their hands if they had done the reading for that day. Those who did not raise their hand were invited to leave, and he would then conduct the class with those students who remained. Typically, he only had to do this once a semester to get his point across. Although I was tempted to experiment with this strategy, I wondered if this was an effective way to engage students in a course. I was still trying to figure out how to best structure my in-class time and minimize lecturing. As I prepared for my introduction to psychology class, I wondered—do my students really need to read before they come to class? Might the chapter be more useful if they read it after I introduce the concepts and help them develop background knowledge? 

In the last two years, several popular articles (e.g. Jagt, 2026) have been written about the struggle to get college students to complete assigned readings noting that many seem to lack basic reading skills. The decline in voluntary reading (e.g. reading for pleasure) among adolescents (NAEP, 2023) means that your students may struggle not only with the amount of required reading but also with comprehension, retention, and reading stamina. Assigned readings that require deep processing, synthesizing, and integration of ideas may be challenging, particularly for first year college students. Because they are reading less in general, your students may need more structure and guidance in reading than you have given students in the past, particularly students transitioning from high school. College students have even indicated that they would like some reading instruction from their professors (Gorzycki et al., 2020). The beginning of the semester is a good time for you to review not only your required reading list but also to consider how you want your students to read the materials.

Often faculty assign challenging readings that build on reading skills that they believe students already possess, with the goal of building disciplinary knowledge and critical thinking. However, a study exploring undergraduate students’ perceptions and beliefs regarding academic reading revealed a disconnect between teacher and student views (Gorzycki et al., 2020). Most students in the study indicated that reading is important, but one-third reported that reading is not essential to earn a good grade in a course. In addition, students consistently agreed that reading assignments in college are ineffective and perceived them to be too long, irrelevant, lacking purpose, or not discussed or referenced in class. The authors of the study recommend that faculty help students understand the relevance of the assigned readings and connect their assigned reading to specific learning outcomes for the course. In addition, faculty should explain disciplinary reading in college and help students understand that they are still developing their reading skills.  

If you want to increase reading compliance among your students, explore some best practices in assigning readings for a college course (see Riddle, 2016) such as identifying: relevance to the course and learning goals, expectations about timing, structure, and connection to in-class activities. Specifically, communicate why, when, and how students should read for your course. Given the low reading compliance among undergraduate students, the timing of reading is key: do students need to read before class? Or would it be more appropriate to provide some background information to the students prior to their reading to introduce them to new vocabulary and concepts that can support deeper understanding of the material? This approach may be particularly useful in introductory courses and may lower students’ frustration as well as improve reading compliance. If you have specific expectations about what you want students to focus on or knowledge you want them to gain from the assigned text, share this information with your students before you ask them to read. Try reading a research article together in class to demonstrate how to extract and use key information. Provide an example of how to annotate a reading (several new technologies are available to support this). Or give them an activity to guide their reading. 

To be clear, I am not suggesting that faculty cut down the number of readings or reduce their expectations of students. I am, however, advocating that faculty be both intentional in their choices and transparent about how students should approach the reading list. In an Inside Higher Ed article on college students and reading, David Kirby (2026) describes how he approaches his assigned readings: “On the first day, I tell my students never to start a book unless they have time to read at least 10 percent of it, which is enough to get a sense of the author’s syntax, diction and overall take on the subject matter. After that, I say it’s okay to skim.” Although his approach may not work for your course, Kirby is articulating the strategy that he wants his students to use in his course. Kirby also asks his students to annotate while reading, bring those ideas to class to discuss, and work through them together to identify what is important. In summary, make sure your expectations around reading are clear to your students. 

I would highlight two additional recommendations regarding assigned readings. First, students often experience frustration when they are assigned material to read and then the instructor never mentions or refers to it in class. Instructors often inadvertently reinforce students’ beliefs that many assigned readings are unnecessary. If the reading is important enough for you to assign it, then be sure to discuss it or refer to it in class and connect it to a learning goal for the course. Second, if you want students to read, then you will need to incorporate an accountability strategy. Students often think that if reading is important, instructors would quiz them on it or somehow connect it to a grade in the course. Accountability can take many different forms such as a minute paper, journaling, reading quizzes, reading circles, book clubs, and leading discussions. Be sure to connect how you want students to read with the accountability method you choose so that they approach reading with a strategy and goal. See the resources below for more information about strategies to support and develop reading skills in college students and how to motivate students to read.