Colleges and reading

[Anonymous]

Is there still a large amount of reading required in college these days? I went to large state U and can recall the professors assigning chapters of reading for the next class. My kids don't seem to be getting that in their honors high school classes (FCPS) and if they are given some reading, some of it is done in class.

How are your kids coping in college? Is it a shock to the system? Did they get a lot of reading and papers assigned in AP/IB classes that helped prepare them?

[Anonymous]

I don't understand how you can have a substantive high school class with no reading assigned before every class. How does that even work?

[Anonymous]

My kid did the IB diploma and seems well-prepared for college--she gets a ton of reading/writing/research (at W&M) and it's very challenging, but it's working out okay so far. What I've noticed when she shows me syllabus that the reading load has books plus a lot of research articles.

[Anonymous]

There is an avalanche of reading and writing. IB was excellent preparation for it but practice in fast reading would be very useful.

[Anonymous]

College professor here. Yes. We expect that one of the biggest things kids learn during their first year or two is how to handle the quantity of reading, before they hit upper-level classes in which there will be substantially more.

There's always a learning curve, unless they come from a really rigorous (usually private) high school, and even then there is typically a change from a lot of homework in a lot of classes for a big overall workload in high school, to significantly fewer classes but heavier reading load in several of them.

I've taught (in the humanities) at a small college with a regional reputation, two state flagships, an ivy, and an couple of ok-but-not-great Catholic universities and I'd give the same answer for all.

[Anonymous]

My DS goes to a private school and he has as much reading as I did in college. Both schools are Catholic schools. I teach in a public school and most teachers don't assign at home reading because most of the students wouldn't do it. The teacher reads aloud in class or they listen to an audio version of the book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS goes to a private school and he has as much reading as I did in college. Both schools are Catholic schools. I teach in a public school and most teachers don't assign at home reading because most of the students wouldn't do it. The teacher reads aloud in class or they listen to an audio version of the book.

Is this high school?? 😱 for the read alouds?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College professor here. Yes. We expect that one of the biggest things kids learn during their first year or two is how to handle the quantity of reading, before they hit upper-level classes in which there will be substantially more.

There's always a learning curve, unless they come from a really rigorous (usually private) high school, and even then there is typically a change from a lot of homework in a lot of classes for a big overall workload in high school, to significantly fewer classes but heavier reading load in several of them.

I've taught (in the humanities) at a small college with a regional reputation, two state flagships, an ivy, and an couple of ok-but-not-great Catholic universities and I'd give the same answer for all.

NP here.

My college experience, as a STEM major at a large state university that gets mentioned on this board (but not in the DMV), was that I probably had reading for the handful of history and other humanities classes I had. But I didn't "read" texts for my STEM classes.... That is, I wasn't reading chemistry, physics, differential equations, etc. texts. I was doing HW, reviewing lecture notes, and preparing for tests.

My question to the professor is "how does the reading for your classes compare to your peer professors in science or math?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS goes to a private school and he has as much reading as I did in college. Both schools are Catholic schools. I teach in a public school and most teachers don't assign at home reading because most of the students wouldn't do it. The teacher reads aloud in class or they listen to an audio version of the book.

Is this high school?? 😱 for the read alouds?

7th and 8th grade. I can't imagine high school is much different though.

[Anonymous]

Our public FCPS MS doesn't read novels anymore. They said they'll still read but I'm assuming it's now short passages. I think they're trying to get students to read SOMETHING and college is not their problem.

[Anonymous]

Yes, lots of reading. My DD is a very fast reader, but she has only been required to read two books so far this year in her AP English class!! Fortunately, she's going to do fine in college because of her reading speed, but her classmates may not fare so well. I don't know why high schools require so little reading these days. When I was in high school, we read a lot of books in the highest level English classes.

[Anonymous]

Yes mine has had a huge increase in reading expectations coming from (public) high school. She used to be a kid who read every word, she really can’t do that anymore the quantity is too huge but she’s learning how to “read smarter” than she used to which is a skill in itself

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She used to be a kid who read every word, she really can’t do that anymore the quantity is too huge but she’s learning how to “read smarter” than she used to which is a skill in itself

^ This is the key. ^ And "reading smarter" can look a little different from discipline to discipline, e.g. reading literature vs. reading in the social sciences.

[Anonymous]

I assign reading (humanities field) at my university, but it doesn't matter if I assign a huge amount or a tiny bit - many students don't do it anyway. The real loss is that they are then really not getting their tuition's worth of instruction, because they cannot participate in class. And this happens way more often than people think it does.

It would be much, much easier for me to just lecture all the time, but quality learning really does depend on active engagement. And yes, I make it a point to explain why I assign the work that I do, to teach skills that are useful outside this major or outside this course, to provide detailed feedback on writing, to keep the expectations appropriate, and to make myself available to students. And they still don't do the reading.

[Anonymous]

I worry about my dyslexic kid, who is doing great in HS. Things may implode at college. She has access to Learning Ally and Bookshare, but refuses to use them. College may change that.