How to Read: A Twenty-First-Century Guide for Students

Don LePan · Corey Frost · Maureen Okun

Jun 2026 · Broadview Press

About this ebook

With reading having become more difficult for many than ever before, universities and colleges are focusing increasingly on the degree to which reading and writing skills are interconnected and are revising their curricula accordingly. This book aims to help.

Using examples from a wide range of academic disciplines and from literature, How to Read offers practical advice on how to pick up on cues, how to infer the meanings of words, how to cope with long sentences and archaic language, and how to read critically. The book helpfully addresses challenges arising from gaps in background knowledge, unfamiliar vocabulary, complex sentence structures, and difficulties in identifying tone or point of view. An online chapter focuses on “reading” visual material. Throughout, How to Read prompts further thought and discussion with a wide range of questions.

About the author

Don LePan’s other books include The Broadview Guide to Writing, How to Be Good with Words, Animals: A Novel, and Lucy and Bonbon: A Novel.

Corey Frost is an Associate Professor of English at Kean University and an experienced writing program administrator as well as a writer.

Maureen Okun, for many years a professor in both the English and the Liberal Studies Departments at Vancouver Island University, is a co-author of The Broadview Guide to Writing and editor of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur: Selections.