Requiring Required Reading

Author: Dr. Sarah Learman – Teaching and Learning Consultant, Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support

I’ve been there. In fact, the literature tells us that most faculty have been there. Ramping up to do an in-class activity or moderate a class discussion, only to realize that most of my students haven’t completed the necessary preparatory reading. It’s not a fun or productive place to be. The activity goes as you’d expect. The students who didn’t do the reading are lost; some try to play catch-up but do so unsuccessfully. The students who did the reading are irritated because they now have to carry the discussion for their unprepared classmates. And you, the instructor, feel… frustrated at best. You told the students the reading was required. It’s on the syllabus and the course outline on Blackboard. Yet they still didn’t read it. And what about the students who turned to ChatGPT for a quick summary, YouTube for a video overview, or old-fashioned SparkNotes for a shortcut (Alonso, 2024)? With ~20% of undergraduate students regularly completing required reading assignments, I can’t help but ask: when did “required” reading become optional (Kerr and Frese, 2017; Deale and Lee, 2021; Sandris, 2025)?

Even more pertinent, why is this happening? Is it simply a matter of short attention spans (McSpadden, 2015)? Is it laziness or busyness? Or do the students choose not to complete the reading assignments because they don’t see the value in doing so (Alonso, 2024)? Finally, we might ask ourselves how can we prevent this from happening again? Thankfully, there are numerous strategies and several schools of thought that speak to these questions directly.

Encourage reading compliance in your class

Helping students see that the reading matters with relevance, value, and motivation

“[Students]… say they tend to avoid readings when the material feels redundant with what they learn in lecture- or when it doesn’t come up in class at all” (Alonso, 2024).  Furthermore, students are more likely to complete reading when they see how it connects to course success. Many students report skipping reading because they believe they can succeed through lectures, slides, or summaries. That’s why, when reading is clearly tied to participation and assessment, students are more likely to prioritize it. To help students see that the reading matters:

• Directly link the assignment to course learning goals/objectives and communicate this explicitly. Reading prompts aligned with learning outcomes help students focus and comprehend. Referencing prompts during class reinforces the value of reading and signals instructional coherence.
• Directly link the assignment to tangible consequences (grades) and explain how reading supports success on future assignments.
• Talk about the importance of the readings during class and connect them to course content.
• Build in autonomy and student agency. Increase ownership and intrinsic motivation by providing choice in supplemental readings or topic focus within a theme.
• Set expectations early and explicitly. Early communication of expectations and rationale improves student buy-in and reduces ambiguity. Framing reading as necessary preparation rather than an optional background increases completion.
• Rethink and reframe your reading assignments. “Intellectual engagement doesn’t hinge on reading compliance; in fact, it often emerges through dynamic learning experiences that encourage students to think critically and apply concepts beyond the classroom” (Miller, 2025). Focusing on why you are assigning a given reading assignment might allow you to revise your expectations and shift your- and your students’- emphasis from “merely completing readings to fostering lasting intellectual curiosity and varied application”. By reframing our reading assignments around thinking rather than compliance we “help students see reading as something that helps them ask better questions, think more deeply, and participate more meaningfully, both in class today and on the job tomorrow” (Miller, 2025).

Creating systems that require or verify completion with accountability and assessment structures

Evidence consistently shows that accountability increases reading completion. For example, studies show reading completion often increases when students know material will appear on assessments. The key is balancing motivation with meaningful learning—not simply surveillance. To create systems that require completion:

• Implement reading quizzes (LMS, start-of-class, or post-reading).
• Use reading logs or journals to collect evidence of reading.
• Cold calling with clear expectations that reading is required preparation.
• Create assignments that allow students to use what they’ve read, rather than prove that they read it. When students see reading as a tool to help them answer their own questions, they come back to it willingly, often more deeply than before (Miller 2025).
• Ask students to summarize their reading notes through a word cloud (free apps are available), short presentation slide show, podcast, wiki, or some type of illustration (Kerr and Frese, 2017).

Designing class so reading is necessary for participation and success through instructional design and course structure

• Design class activities that require the reading (debates, case studies, group work based on text).
• Provide reading guides with guided questions tied directly to class discussion or quizzes.
• Reference readings explicitly during class.
• Spend the first 10-15 minutes of class time reading. This way, those who did not complete the reading on their own have an opportunity to catch up, while those who did can go back and highlight or take more notes on the text (Alonso, 2024).
• Make reading social. Reading is often assigned as an isolated activity—but evidence suggests collaborative approaches improve engagement. Social annotation platforms, for example, have been shown to increase time spent reading, improve exam performance, and support higher-quality peer learning interactions. Collaborative annotation increases motivation, peer learning, and persistence through difficult texts. Collaborative or scripted reading discussions improve engagement and accountability. “When students need to understand concepts from readings to succeed in a task – and one they complete in front of peers, at that – they return to the readings on their own” (Miller, 2025).
• Implement guided readings, in which the instructor reads aloud to the class to help them navigate the text in real time (Alonso, 2024).
• Invite students to apply the readings to real-life experiences. Develop exercises to be completed during or after reading that require students to apply the content to a real-life scenario. (Kerr and Frese, 2017)
  

Making reading feel achievable and sustainable through workload and cognitive management

Students are more likely to complete shorter, clearly prioritized readings than large, undifferentiated reading loads. To make reading feel more achievable:

• Many students have limited experience with task-oriented academic reading strategies; these need to be shared and communicated along with reading expectations.
• Assign and provide reading guides. Structured support, such as accessible summaries or guided reading templates, increases confidence and ability to engage with scholarly texts.
• Explain how to navigate academic reading (textbook features, article structure, reading strategies). Explicit guidance on the reading conventions of your discipline, highlighting the difference between how one reads a novel compared to a scholarly article about chemistry (Alonso, 2024).
• Use diverse formats (short texts, audiobooks, graphic novels, varied modalities) and introduce the students to the text in an accessible way, through audiobooks or text-to-speech software.
• Show enthusiasm for the textbook and explain why it was selected.
• Provide annotation frameworks.
• Share “how to read this type of text” mini-lessons.

Helping students to complete the reading with access, inclusion, and learner support

Reading challenges often stem from comprehension barriers, unfamiliar vocabulary, or lack of reading strategies—not just motivation. In fact, many undergraduates have never been taught how to read academic material efficiently. Evidence shows structured supports help. Here’s how:

• Many students have limited experience with task-oriented academic reading strategies; these need to be shared and communicated along with reading expectations.
• Assign and provide reading guides. Structured support, such as accessible summaries or guided reading templates, increases confidence and ability to engage with scholarly texts.
• Explain how to navigate academic reading (textbook features, article structure, reading strategies). Explicit guidance on the reading conventions of your discipline, highlighting the difference between how one reads a novel compared to a scholarly article about chemistry (Alonso, 2024).
• Use diverse formats (short texts, audiobooks, graphic novels, varied modalities) and introduce the students to the text in an accessible way, through audiobooks or text-to-speech software.
• Show enthusiasm for the textbook and explain why it was selected.
• Provide annotation frameworks.
• Share “how to read this type of text” mini-lessons.

Final takeaway

While our initial response to student noncompliance with our reading expectations may be frustration with the students, our second response should be to step back and examine our course design and the reading supports we currently have in place to help our students navigate dense content outside of class. The takeaway for us is clear: reading completion is less about student willpower and more about course design, motivation structures, and skill support. Looking at ourselves and asking “what can I do to encourage reading compliance” is important. But what’s more important is that we remember that 1) students complete readings when reading is clearly tied to learning, participation, and course success—not when it is simply assigned, and 2) the most effective reading strategies combine:

• Transparency (why reading matters)
• Accountability (low-stakes, frequent engagement)
• Skill development (how to read academically)
• Community (shared reading experiences)
• Workload realism (intentional reading selection)
  

References

“Getting More Students to Read Assigned Readings.” The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Center for Teaching Excellence , www.utrgv.edu/cte/resources/course-design/students-assigned-readings/index.htm.

“Teaching Innovations - Teaching Innovation and Program Strategy (TIPS): CU Denver.” Getting Your Students to Read, 2 Jan. 2023, www.ucdenver.edu/tips/resources/blog/TIPS-blog-how-to-get-your-students-to-read

Alonso, Johanna. “Students Turn to Ai to Do Their Assigned Readings for Them.” Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs, 2024, www.insidehighered.com/news/students/academics/2024/09/25/students-turn-ai-do-their-assigned-readings-them

Deale, Cynthia S., and Seung Hyun Lee. “To read or not to read? exploring the reading habits of hospitality management students.” Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, vol. 34, no. 1, 11 Feb. 2021, pp. 45–56, https://doi.org/10.1080/10963758.2020.1868317

Hattenberg, S. J., and Steffy, K. (2013). Increasing reading compliance of undergraduates: An evaluation of compliance methods. Teaching Sociology, 41 (4), 346–352.

Hoeft, Mary E. (2012) "Why University Students Don't Read: What Professors Can Do To Increase Compliance," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 6: No. 2, Article 12.

Kerr, M. M., & Frese, K. M. (2017). Reading to learn or learning to read? engaging college students in course readings. College Teaching, 65(1), 28-31. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/87567555.2016.1222577.

McSpadden, Kevin. “Science: You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span than a Goldfish.” Time, Time, 14 May 2015, https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/

Miller, Laura  Nicole. “Why We Can’t Get Students to Read: And What Educators Should Focus on Instead.” Harvard Business Impact Education, 2025, https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/get-students-to-read-for-knowledge-transfer

Stanny, Claudia. “Why Students Don’t Read: Strategies to Increase Student Preparation for Class.” Teaching at BYU, Teaching at BYU, 8 Oct. 2021, https://teaching.byu.edu/why-students-dont-read-strategies-to-increase-student-preparation-for-class

Zeivots, Sandris. “Up to 80% of UNI Students Don’t Read Their Assigned Readings. Here Are 6 Helpful Tips for Teachers.” The Conversation, 30 Apr. 2025, https://theconversation.com/up-to-80-of-uni-students-dont-read-their-assigned-readings-here-are-6-helpful-tips-for-teachers-165952