top of page

Reading with Purpose: Reading to Integrate

Reading to integrate, like reading to learn, requires learners to make connections. However, they make connections and combine sources in order to RESTRUCTURE their knowledge, rather than build it (Grabe & Stoller, 2011). This requires learners to critically evaluate what information to integrate and how to integrate it. Through this process learners synthesize the knowledge gained with their previous knowledge. More often than not, they display this synthesized knowledge through writing tasks like short summaries or paraphrases, class essays, short responses, reflection essays, reports, research papers, and critical analysis papers (Grabe & Zhang, 2013). Consequently, reading to integrate is the most complex purpose of academic reading because it requires the use of all purposes and connects them to writing tasks. 

 Helpful Skills

  • Recognizing the significance of the content

  • Recognizing importance details

  • Recognizing unrelated details

  • Finding the main idea

  • Differentiating fact and opinion

  • Locating topic sentences

  • Locating answers to specific questions

  • Making inferences

  • Critically evaluating content

  • Realizing an author's purpose

  • Determining the accuracy of information

  • Using a table of contents, index, library catelog, appendices, etc

  • Understanding written problems

  • Understanding expository material

  • Understanding argument

  • Understanding descriptive material

  • Understanding categories

  • Interpreting tables, graphs, formulas, and charts

  • Interpreting cartoons, diagrams, pictures, and maps 

  • Adjusting reading rate relative to purpose and difficulty of material

  • Scanning for specific information

  • Skimming for important ideas

  • Learning new material from text

  • Specifying a purpose for reading

  • Planning what to do/what steps to take

  • Previewing the text

  • Predicting 

  • Posing questions about the text

  • Connecting text to background knowledge

  • Summarizing information

  • Connecting one part of the text to another

  • Paying attention to text structure

  • Rereading

  • Guessing the meaning of a word from context

  • Using discourse markers to see relationships

  • Checking comprehension

  • Identifying difficulties

  • Repairing faulty comprehension

  • Critiquing the author

  • Critiquing the text

  • Judging how well objectives were met

  • Reflecting on what has been learned from the text

  • Understanding vocabulary in context

  • Text highlighting

  • Recognizing rhetorical patterns

Academic Tasks

  • Reading and understanding passages

  • Completing exams & quizzes

  • Completing worksheets & study guides

  • Complete projects

  • Writing in and out of class essays

  • Writing short responses

  • Writing reflective essays

  • Writing reports

  • Writing a critical analysis

  • Wriing longer research papers

  • Writing a literature review

  • Preparing presentations

  • Participating in discussions

  • Reviewing a text model

  • Learning new ideas and vocabulary

  • Critically analyzing text

  • Summarizing information

  • Paraphrasing information

  • Taking notes

  • Synthesizing or combining information

  • Compare multiple points or veiws

The information for this page came from Chase et al. (1994), Gallagher (2011), Grabe (2009), Grabe and Stoller (2011), Grabe and Zhang (2013), Gunderson (1991), Jensen (1986), Shelyakina (2010), and Shih (1992).

bottom of page