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Revista Científica de la UCSA

On-line version ISSN 2409-8752

Rev. ciente. UCSA vol.6 no.2 Asunción Aug. 2019

https://doi.org/10.18004/ucsa/2409-8752/2019.006.02.003-005 

Articles

Reflections on reading at university

Luz G. del Puerto1 

1Universidad del Cono Sur de las Américas (UCSA). Asunción, Paraguay


"Reading is the exercise that best prepares the mind", this simple Guillermo Jaim Etcheverry (2000, p.182) remark summarizes the powerful role of reading in the cultural formation of people.

Encouraging a favorable environment for reading by educational institutions is essential, since the promotion of reading must also occur at the university level. From the first day of class, students must face the reading of different types of texts, in the same way, when entering the university level; students must face new ways of thinking and acquiring knowledge and understanding the texts. The absence of these skills affect the academic level, which can even lead to university drop out.

Given the importance of information in the training of researchers, students need autonomy in their ability to investigate, transform, produce, disseminate and use information. In educational institutions at all levels, teachers are the reading models and this relationship with reading and habits will have an effect, positive or negative, on students, in this regard (Ramirez Leyva, cited in Rovira and López 2017) "Higher education institutions must train active readers so they can develop capacities that allow them to use information for learning, knowledge and innovations in different areas."

The current concept of reading implies "a process through which the reader makes a meaning in their interaction with the text" (Anderson and Person, cited in Cooper (1999, p 17). Reading has gone from being a skill that is learned once and forever all in the initial literacy stage; it emphasizes the concept of process, and in that way, in each stage of the academic formation, the student must learn and acquire new skills and reading strategies. Reading ability can occur regardless of the format in which the written text appears (they can be printed, digital, audiovisual or multimedia.) For reading to fulfill its true function, the comprehension of the text must be achieved. "Reading implies understanding the written text. "(Solé, 2009, p 18).

On the other hand, education today is understood as an interaction between educational institutions with life, and teaching with society, in this sense, reading must transcend the academic sphere. The teacher must be interested in the local, national reality, and their students as subjects of the educational process. To know these realities so that in their interrelation they are transformed and developed. Students must know these realities so that in their interrelation they are transformed and developed. The mediation of the university teacher is fundamental. The deepening of scientific life requires the student to be methodical and rigorous. (Rovira and López, 2017)

The importance of training students and teachers in the promotion of reading at this level is essential, since this cognitive activity is what makes possible a great number of learnings that have to do, both with the acquisition of disciplinary content and with the development of skills and reading strategies. The beginning of university studies is an area and a moment in which this academic literacy should be carried out, in order to provide the elements to access the texts, the information, the vocabulary of university life and, finally, to become also them in promoters of this transversal ability.

At present, it is essential that the university teacher becomes a promoter of reading and the use of books in their academic training. Teacher as a reading mediator should know the necessary strategies to facilitate access to all types of reading, and that reading should not be reduced to an academic activity based on the demands of the subject, but as a personal interest to be trained for life. It must be taken into account that university students are expected to acquire a behavior of deep interest towards science, which must be critical and rigorous; this study activity at the university level will depend on the student's own effort, which requires training as a freelance and critical reader and writer (Rovira and López, 2017).

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