See also Threshold concepts

'Undergraduate academic reading continues to resonate as an almost universally ‘sticky’ (Schon) threshold concept for higher level learning, with many students struggling to select, read and then use literature in their own research and writing. Saltmarsh and Saltmarsh’s (2008), ‘Has anyone read the reading?’ responds locally to flawed undergraduate reading practices, but also reflects a wider concern in HE about the academic ‘skills’ students enter university with (Hermida, 2009). A significant aspect of academic reading for students across all levels is often the challenge of discerning the levels of credibility or influence of particular sources (Moore, 2013). The requirement for independent reading, with increasing expectations of ‘criticality’, presents further challenges regarding the process of selection and the purpose of academic reading, compounded by the apparent discord between perspectives of students and staff on reading lists (Brewerton, 2014). This is particularly significant where a disciplinary view of criticality emerges from a student’s individual engagement with reading and their positioning in terms of its discourse, which locates reading as a social practice (Lea & Street, 2006)'. Keele University, Becoming Well Read symposium, 2019

Well-known for his text-based research within EAP (1990, 2000, 2003) Swales' 1990 site-based textographic study brought textual analysis and ethnography together to investigate three academic communities. Textography can be used to produce highly contextualised studies of a discipline’s texts and practices. Textographic results can make a specific subject’s textual practices more visible and indicate relevant literature and materials to support students studying within the subject area and context (Sizer, 2019).

Bibliography:

Abbeglen, S., Burns, T., Middlebrook, D., and Sinfield, S. ( 2019) 'Unrolling the text: Using scrolls to facilitate academic reading'. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Issue 14.

Abbott, R. (2013) 'Crossing thresholds in academic reading'. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 50:2, 191-201, DOI: 10.1080/14703297.2012.760865

Baker, S., Bangeni, B., Burke, R., & Hunma, A. (2019) 'The invisibility of academic reading as social practice and its implications for equity in higher education: a scoping study'. Higher Education Research & Development, 38:1, 142-156, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2018.1540554

Bharuthram, S., and Clarence, S. (2019) 'Teaching academic reading as a disciplinary knowledge practice in higher education'. South African Journal of Higher Education Volume 29 | Number 2 | 2015 pp. 42–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6DW63

Brewerton, G. (2014) 'Implications of Student and Lecturer Qualitative Views on Reading Lists: A Case Study at Loughborough University, UK'. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 20:1, 78-90, DOI: 10.1080/13614533.2013.864688

Gourlay, L. (2009) 'Threshold practices: becoming a student through academic literacies '. London Review of Education Vol. 7, No. 2, 181–192. Available at: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/ioep/clre/2009/00000007/00000002/art00008?crawler=true&mimetype=application/pdf

Hermida, J. (2009) 'The importance of teaching academic reading skills in first year university courses'. The International Journal of Research and Review, 3, 20–30.

Hill, L. & Inés Meo, A. (2015) 'A Bourdieusian approach to academic reading: reflections on a South African teaching experience'. Teaching in Higher Education, 20:8, 845-856, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2015.1095178

Hoeft, M. E. (2012) 'Why university students don’t read: What professors can do to increase compliance'. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(2), 1–14. 10.20429/ijsotl.2012.060212

Howard, P. J., Gorzycki, M., Desa, G., & Allen, D. (2018) 'Academic Reading: Comparing Students’ and Faculty Perceptions of Its Value, Practice, and Pedagogy'. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 48:3, 189-209, DOI: 10.1080/10790195.2018.1472942

Lea, M. R. & Street, B. V. (2006) 'The "Academic Literacies" Model: Theory and Applications'. Theory Into Practice, 45:4, 368-377, DOI: 10.1207/s15430421tip4504_11

Linderholm, T. (2006). 'Reading with purpose'. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 36(2), 70–79.

Lockhart, T., & Soliday, M. (2016) 'The critical place of reading in writing transfer (and beyond): A report of student experiences'. Pedagogy, 16(1), 23–37. 10.1215/15314200-3158589 10.1080/10790195.2006.10850189

Macmillan, M. (2014) 'Student connections with academic texts: a phenomenographic study of reading'. Teaching in Higher Education, 19(8), 943-954.

Manarin, K., Carey, M., Rathburn, M., & Ryland, G. (2015) 'Critical reading for academic purposes'. In Critical reading in higher education: Academic goals and social engagement (pp. 47–64). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Middlebrook, R. D. (n.d.) 'The Text Mapping Project'. Available at: http://www.textmapping.org/overview.html

Moore, T. (2013) 'Critical thinking: seven definitions in search of a concept'. Studies in Higher Education, 38:4, 506-522, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2011.586995

Recht, D.R. and Leslie, L. (1988) 'Effect of prior knowledge on good and poor readers’ memory of text'. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(1), p.16.

Rhead, A. (2019) 'The trouble with academic reading: exposing hidden threshold concepts through academic reading retreats'. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. No 15

Saltmarsh, D. & Saltmarsh, S. (2008) 'Has anyone read the reading? Using assessment to promote academic literacies and learning cultures'. Teaching in Higher Education, 13:6, 621-632, DOI: 10.1080/13562510802452343

Schön, D. A. (1991) The Reflective Turn: Case Studies In and On Educational Practice, New York: Teachers Press, Columbia University.

Sizer, J. (2019) 'Textography as a needs analysis and research tool for English for Academic Purposes and learning development practitioners'. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 15.

Swales, J. M. (1990) Genre analysis : English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Terada, Y. (2019) 'How much background knowledge is needed to undestand a text?' Edutopia. Available at: https://www.edutopia.org/article/research-zeroes-barrier-reading-plus-tips-teachers