Why teach reading strategies to adults in transition to college?
Difficulties in reading comprehension are common for students transitioning to college, and the need to provide students with concrete strategies in approaching reading tasks is well documented (Malena & Atwood Coker, 1987). Research in reading comprehension has studied the different reading processes of good readers and poor readers to determine how good readers come to understand and retain what they have read (Long & Long, 1987). Studies have shown that students skilled in reading comprehension tend to interact with course material actively through paraphrasing, summarizing, and relating the material to personal experience while students less skilled in reading comprehension tend to underline or reread passively without the use of specific strategies (Dowhower, 1999; Duffy et al, 1987; Long & Long, 1987). Without the use of reading strategies, students experience difficulty inferring conceptual meaning while reading, relating to what they have read, self-monitoring their learning an
