Task-Oriented Reading: A Framework for Improving College Students’ Reading Compliance and Comprehension

Undergraduates report a variety of reasons for not reading assigned text(s), including confusion regarding instructors’ expectations, while faculty report using reading as a major instructional tool and attest to the negative consequences of students’ lack of reading. To bridge this divide, we propose Task-Oriented Reading Instruction (TORI) as a theoretically-based framework which faculty can use to explicitly communicate reading goals to students, specify effective reading strategies, and align class assessments with assigned reading goals. Synthesizing educational and psychological research on effective reading, this general framework can be applied across courses and disciplines.