Background: Reading is a functional academic literacy ability needed by students in higher education. In the South African context, inadequate reading ability is one of the reasons for high undergraduate attrition rates. It seems that role players within this sector are of the opinion that students have reading ‘problems’ that need to be ‘fixed’, often by generic reading courses. This article differs from the perception of reading ‘problems’, as reading is viewed from a lifespan developmental perspective. According to this perspective undergraduate students do not have reading ‘problems’ but experience reading barriers hindering their reading development and in effect their academic literacy. Objectives: This study aimed to uncover some of these barriers by means of an empirical study conducted at the North-West University (NWU). Method: The setting of this study was the Potchefstroom campus of the NWU. A qualitative methodology was chosen whereby 14 individual interviews and 7 focus group interviews were used. The purpose of these interviews was to better understand lecturers’ and students’ perceptions about the variables of the reading process, namely the reading ability of the reader, the text to be read, the task, and the socio-cultural context. Results: Lecturers and students perceived a number of reading barriers within each variable, namely students’ non-compliance and lack of abilities, elements of the textbook and availability of lecturer notes, the format of the task, throughput pressures, and lecturers’ assumptions. Conclusion: Knowledge of these barriers and knowledge of the interconnectedness of the reading process could enable role players to collaboratively rethink undergraduate reading support, in which the lecturer has a crucial role to play.

中文翻译：

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高等教育中的阅读障碍：重新思考阅读支持

背景：阅读是高等教育学生所需的功能性学术素养能力。在南非的情况下，阅读能力不足是造成大学流失率高的原因之一。在这个领域的角色扮演者似乎认为，学生在阅读“问题”时需要“解决”这些问题，通常是通过通用阅读课程来解决。本文与阅读“问题”的看法不同，因为阅读是从终身发展的角度来看的。根据这种观点，本科生没有阅读“问题”，但是经历了阅读障碍，阻碍了他们的阅读发展并影响了他们的学术素养。目标：这项研究旨在通过西北大学（NWU）进行的一项经验研究来发现其中一些障碍。方法：这项研究的地点是西北大学Potchefstroom校区。选择了定性方法，使用了14次个人访谈和7个焦点小组访谈。这些访谈的目的是更好地理解讲师和学生对阅读过程变量的看法，即读者的阅读能力，所阅读的文本，任务和社会文化背景。结果：讲师和学生意识到每个变量中的许多阅读障碍，即学生的不达标和能力不足，教科书的内容和讲师笔记的可用性，任务的形式，吞吐压力和讲师的假设。结论：