Recap: Page by Page
Motivating students to embrace the desirable difficulties of reading, with Dr. Elizabeth Barre
On February 12, 2025, guest speaker Dr. Elizabeth Barre, Assistant Provost and Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Wake Forest University, presented a workshop entitled, “Page by Page: Motivating Students to Embrace the Desirable Difficulties of Reading.” CETL was excited to host more than 90 members of the UM teaching community for this event.
After guiding participants through a brief reflection on meaningful reading experiences and unpleasant ones, Barre articulated two key problems around reading:
Innovative reading technology threatens to eliminate meaningful reading experiences altogether.
As individuals, educators, and a society, we are reading less than our predecessors.
Reading, Barre acknowledged, is difficult. It is a skill that must be learned and practiced, and in the face of myriad tools promising to increase speed and efficiency of reading (e.g., audiobooks on 3x speed, summaries, generative AI), the focus and skill required to read is likely harder for all of us to achieve than ever before. Given this, the vicious cycle begins: reading is difficult and thus we turn to reading aids, whereby we read less, which then makes reading more difficult, and so on and so forth.
Barre suggested looking at these realities not as problems, but rather, considering them on the Innovation Bargain chart by Josh Brake. This framework can help guide a classroom conversation of what students gain and lose because of these reading technologies. For instance, a digital text can be great for finding keywords, but it can be harder to concentrate while reading on a phone or laptop, or to engage in deep reading in general. Understanding the trade-offs can help students and instructors alike make informed decisions about what kinds of reading aids/technologies to use and why. Furthermore, instructors may find it enlightening to hear why their students choose not to read. Invite students to make the case against reading, Barre suggested. This discussion often engages their metacognitive skills such that students arrive at reasons to change their reading habits.
Types of Reading
Reading, after all, is not just one thing. Barre outlined a few types of reading, including:
scanning without processing (i.e., eyes move across the page but the reader is not comprehending the words)
decoding words
scanning for information (often key for STEM fields)
immersive experience
reading to learn
The last two types are what Barre defined as “deep reading,” which allow readers to engage not just with others’ ideas through the page, but also reflect on their own ideas. In deep reading, the value is less from the text itself and more from the inferences, critical analysis, empathy, and personal reflection that takes place in the act of reading. This is often the type of reading instructors want students to engage in, even if it is not explicitly stated.
Deep reading is slow because it is in this slow process that the reflection, learning, and thinking takes place. The slowness is the point.
In a world optimizing for speed, students may be pressed for time when it comes to reading, which means they have fewer chances to reflect, learn, and think. Barre identified multiple prerequisites for deep reading:
time
physical and mental stamina
decoding skills
motivation
vocabulary
background knowledge
She also acknowledged how this is a demanding and varied set of skills and factors, many of which may not be accessible to students in a given course.
The Virtuous Cycle
How, then, can we break out of the vicious reading cycle? Barre shared how a meaningful reading experience encourages students to read more often, which helps build skills, habits, and knowledge needed to read, which allows for more meaningful reading experiences. This virtuous cycle can be made possible through increasing student motivation around reading.
Focusing on deep reading, Barre suggested a few key ways instructors can facilitate this particular type of reading:
Select the right reading.
Ideally, instructors begin the course with texts that relate to students’ interests.
Sometimes, instructors do not have the luxury of choosing a text that engages with students’ interests. In this case, Barre encouraged instructors to find texts that aim to teach and draw readers in—perhaps with analogies to other fields that may then relate to student concerns—as opposed to texts whose audiences are other scholars, which assumes a high level of context and interest.
Provide appropriate support.
Supply necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to engage with the text.
It may help, too, to explain why the reading was selected. Most students have no idea why they are asked to read a particular text or how it fits into the course.
Provide sufficient time.
One rule of thumb is to assign 1-2 hours of work per credit hour each week.
It can help to start small, providing short but meaningful reading experiences, and build towards longer texts.
Teach general reading skills.
Model ways to read a text in class. Voicing your thoughts as you read can help students understand how to deep read and approach a text.
Barre concluded with an assortment of ways to increase the value of reading for young people. Quick ways to do this include reading in front of students (e.g., between class periods) and showcasing personal libraries (e.g., in offices and classrooms). More involved activities include designing a “reading in pop culture” assignment (i.e., students find examples in pop culture where reading is cool) and organizing reading groups that meet outside of class (i.e., students discuss informally in social book clubs). Altogether, participants left with more than a dozen ways to motivate student reading, as well as a shortlist of books on…reading!
You can access Barre’s live slides here.
Recommended reading
Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf (UM Library)
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (UM Library)
Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf (UM Library)
Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene (UM Library)
The Reading Mind by Daniel T. Willingham (UM Library eBook)
The Science of Reading by Adrian Johns (UM Library)
10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People by David Yaeger (UM Library eBook)
How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler (UM Library)
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