Developing Reading Skills in Higher Education: Highlighting Critical Reading

Introduction  

"In higher education critical reading is a common requirement" (Richardson, 2004, p.508) and generally accepted as a skill that university students need to acquire (Wilson et al., 2004). While it is important for students to develop critical reading skills, they are not always easily learned (Hayford, 2001). Some students may have deeply held beliefs that slow the process of developing these skills (Shannon, 2017, p.161) while other will have developed reading habits which focus entirely on the literal meaning of texts (Murillo Rojas & Zúñiga Vargas, 2017, p.321). As a result, before students undertake critical reading, they may need spend some time thinking about what it is. The following exercises are ones that I have used to help students think about critical reading before undertaking any exercises. The aim of each is to raise awareness of features of critical reading. So, those who have deeply held beliefs might realise that they need, as a minimum, to have a clear awareness of what underpins competing ideas but ideally are also open enough to be prepared to adopt these competing ideas. Similarly, those who do not consider alternative interpretations of the text are able to see how it is important to consider other possible meanings and to realise that what they understand from a text depends on what knowledge they bring to it. 

 

1) Ambiguous Language 

In the first activity the students are presented with ambiguous language and asked what came into their minds. 

The first sentence has been widely used in the literature to illustrate ambiguity. So, the sentence is displayed on the screen: 

The chicken is ready to eat. 

The students are asked to think what it was that immediately came into their minds. 

They are then shown picture 1: 

 

 
They are asked if what they were thinking was something like the picture. The response of many will be, "Yes" but some may explain a more complex recipe. There may be a few who did not think of this or a similar image or it might be that all interpreted the sentence as in the image. However, it is important to move quickly to the alternative image which is Picture 2. 

 

Picture 2: 

 

 
The students are then asked if they thought of anything akin to picture 2. A few usually say they did but generally most realise at this point that there is an alternative meaning for the sentence that had not occurred to them. 

The point being made is that it is important to consider if there is any alternative understanding of what they are reading. 

This is then followed up with a sentence that has three possible interpretations. Now that the students are aware of the need to think of alternatives, they may think of two interpretations but are unlikely to think of three.  

The sentence used is another that has featured on several occasions in the literature: 

I saw her duck under the table. 

Most students think of the two interpretations in which "saw" is the past tense of the verb to see; either or both of her bird or her action of ducking being seen by the writer. These are shown in Picture 3: 

 

It is rare for students to think of the third interpretation. So, for most when it is revelled, Picture 4, in which the bird is sawn, is a surprise. 

Picture 4: 

 

The point here is that even when we have thought of an alternative explanation there may well be further interpretations to consider. 

 

2) Ambiguous Data 

This activity does not use data but uses images as an illustration. It is inspired by and draws on ideas from Heywood (1979).  

So, the first image used Is Picture 5. The students are asked what they can see. 

Picture 5: 
 

 

 

Many can see one figure. A few can see both and some initially see just one but quickly see a second. There are also some who cannot see anything at all. So, it is explained that the image is like data being read and therefore different interpretations are possible. Then for those unable to see one of the figures, the features that make up that figure are explained. This then helps many to see the figure that was not clear to them before. 

The next image Picture 6 is a rotating one featuring a princess and an old woman. The comment simply concerns the perspective that is taken on the evidence. Reminding the students that different perspectives might yield different results. 

Picture 6: 
 

 

 

 
 

3) Experts 

The 'Experts' activity is designed to help the students realise that different experts on a topic may have differing views and values which could be caused by a variety of reasons, such as their different backgrounds or cultures and how they value different research methodologies. 

To show how it is important to take these differences into account when reading, Picture 7, which consists of four images of television panels is used. 

Picture 7 

 
It is quickly established that the four pictures are experts: 

What do these four groups of people all have in common? 

The response of "Judges" is true for all but one group. 

The responses of "They are all famous/on TV/talented" are not specific enough. 

Once the fact they are all experts is established, the next question is answered quickly: 

Do they always agree? 

There is a brief discussion about the disagreement being part of the entertainment before each picture is considered in turn with the differing backgrounds and experience emphasised. 

Top-left - Strictly Come Dancing 

Choreographer 

Ballet dancer 

Ballroom dancer 

Modern dancer 

 

Top-right - China's Got Talent 

Actor 

Singer 

TV Personality 

 

Bottom- left - Match of the Day 

Defender 

Striker 

Defender 

Striker 

 

Bottom-right - Chinese Master Chef 

Chef 

TV Personality 

Professional eater 

The last individual being classed as a professional eater helps to make the exercise more memorable. The point is that researchers are the same and it is important to remember this when reading research articles and academic texts and to actively seek out research which challenges what has been read. 

 
 

4) Does clock-watching make you clock-wise? 

The final activity uses material from a memory experiment conducted by French and Richards (1993) and repeated by Richards, French and Harris (1996) in which they publish the images used. The purpose of the activity is to demonstrate that "reading is an interaction between the reader and the text" (Berger, 2019, p.140) and that if the reader's beliefs and assumptions are strong enough then this can override what is written in the text. 

The activity opens with the students being told that when reading critically they must try to clarify what they know about the topic and be prepared to challenge what they already know. Picture 8, an image of a clock, is displayed and the students are asked to study it for a few moments. 

Picture 8 

                                                               Source: Richards, French, & Harris (1996) 

The image of the clock is then hidden. The students are then told that the image will reappear but with one part missing and that they will need to draw the missing part of the image. An adaptation of the image shown in Picture 8 is then revealed (Picture 9) and the students are given a short time to draw the part of the image that has been removed. 

Picture 9 

                                       Source: adapted from Richards, French, & Harris (1996) 

While the students are completing this short task it is worth viewing their output to have an idea of which students are getting it correct. Generally, very few students get it correct and occasionally no one has it correct. 

Once most have completed the drawing, the incorrect image, Picture 10, is displayed. 

Picture 10 

 

                                                              Source: Richards, French, & Harris (1996) 

The students are then asked to raise their hands if they have "IV" as displayed on the screen. The vast majority put their hands up. The small number who did not put a hand up fall into three camps. On the one hand, some have little awareness of roman numerals and guessed that "IIII" follows "III". On the other hand, there should be some who noticed there was a "IIII" and some who know that clocks with roman numerals usually have "IIII" as the four. The last two groups should look confused or even ready to challenge. Therefore, at this point someone looking confused or ready to speak, should be asked, "What's wrong?" They will generally say that the clock being shown is not what was shown or that it is wrong. I then return to Picture 8 and ask them if it is what they saw. The rest of the group then realise that "IV" was not what was in the image and that their own knowledge of roman numerals had overriden what they had seen. The truth is that the four on a clock is more commonly "IIII" than "IV" but that in most other instances of roman numerals being used it is "IV" which represents four. 

 
 

Conclusion 

The activities described above provide students with some insights into what critical reading entails before they engage in any critical reading activity. It may be more effective if immediately followed by real reading activities such as the one described in Ireland (2023). Nevertheless, the insights provided by the activities may help some students adopt an approach to reading in higher education which enables them to develop the necessary skills more quickly than might otherwise have been the case. 

 
 

References 

Berger, M. (2019). Different reading styles for mathematics text. Educational studies in mathematics, 100(2), 139-159. 

French, C. C., & Richards, A. (1993). Clock this! An everyday example of a schema-driven error in memory. British Journal of Psychology, 84. 249-253. 

Hayford, A. (2001). Feminist Debates: Issues of Theory and Political Practice. The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 38(3), 355-355. 

Heywood, J. M. (1979) A Method of Showing Pupils That They Are Unlikely to Receive a Completely Unbiased Economics Education. In Whitehead, D. J. (ed.), Handbook for Economics Teachers, (pp. 262-263). London: Heinemann Educational Books. 

Ireland, C. (2023). Can Artificial Intelligence complete my students' work?. Figshare. Online resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22261585.v2  

Murillo Rojas, A., & Zúñiga Vargas, J. P. (2017). Implementing collaborative learning to promote inference-making in a reading strategy course in English. 

Richards, A., French, C. C., & Harris, P. (1996). Does clock-watching make you clock-wise? Memory, 4, 49-58. 

Richardson, P. W. (2004). Reading and writing from textbooks in higher education: a case study from Economics. Studies in Higher Education, 29(4), 505-521. 

Shannon, P. (2017). “Who are your influences?”: Interrupting the Tidy Production of Teachers of Reading. In Becoming Critical Teacher Educators (pp. 154-164). Routledge. 

Wilson, K., Devereux, L., Macken-Horarik, M., & Trimingham-Jack, C. (2004, July). Reading readings: How students learn to (dis) engage with critical reading. In Proceedings of the 2004 Annual International Conference of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA). 

Available as a pdf from: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24630876.v2