Reading reports as a practice for comprehension and reflection in higher education

Abstract

To actively participate in the academic sphere, it is essential to engage in language practices involving texts and discourses characteristic of this domain. In this context, reading emerges as a vital practice for constructing knowledge of various types, requiring explicit and systematic instruction to enable students to learn how to read within the context of higher education. This scenario becomes even more complex when we consider students who have recently graduated from high school, particularly in the post-physical distancing context resulting from the global Covid-19 pandemic. Many of these students did not have the opportunity to engage in in-person reading activities during high school. In this context, this article aims to reflect on the potential of reading summaries as a practice for the comprehension and critical reflection of theoretical texts in higher education. To this end, reports created by students from different semesters of a Language and Literature program at a university in the interior of Santa Catarina, Brazil, are analyzed. The students, after receiving guidance on reading strategies, specifically on the construction of reading summaries, prepared their reports as a study tool for various courses within the program. The analyses, grounded in psycholinguistic theories, indicate that reading reports serve as a tool for dialogue between the text and the reader’s prior knowledge, as well as a space for reflections, questions, and the triangulation of knowledge, fostering reading comprehension. Furthermore, explicit and systematic instruction in this form of documentation is considered to contribute to students' learning and autonomy within the higher education context.