Reading in geography

‘Learning geography requires students to read widely from a variety of texts and other sources of information. They need to select, compare, synthesise and evaluate information from different sources as well as use other skills to distinguish fact and opinion, and to recognise bias and objectivity in sources. Add to this the fact that geography has its own extensive vocabulary which needs to be mastered if students are to be able to understand and interpret what they are reading.’

Biddulph et al., 2015, p. 157

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In geography we use a range of different types of literature including explanation, information, argument and instruction. We place quite high reading demands on students and expect them to be able to read text closely to find detailed information as well as being able to scan and skim, looking for key points.

Geography textbooks are usually written in a formal style and geography often uses multi-syllabic words and long sentences which require higher reading ages. Useful articles for geography found in newspapers and on the web are usually written for adult readers. For example, articles in the Guardian or Independent often require a reading age of over 20.

This can be a significant barrier for those with limited literacy skills and you must consider must consider how to give access to all when planning lessons. You must be aware of any difficulties your students face. There are often alternative information sources we can use in geography, such as images, maps, graphs and diagrams which can help. You should draw attention to any visual information that is provided to support text. This is often referred to as ‘dual-coding’.

In April 2025 the DfE published Supporting reading in secondary school: Guidance and workbook for all secondary school practitioners). It is a training package to help all secondary teachers to support reading in all secondary students. The package includes 11 videos (available free on-line) that introduce research on secondary reading and outline seven strategies for supporting reading in the classroom. It can provide you with opportunities to reflect on and develop your practice to support reading.

What is reading in the secondary school?

In order to read successfully students need to be able to read words and texts accurately and fluently and they need language comprehension.

• Watch the DfE video What is Reading?

This video uses the ‘Simple View of Reading’ (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) as a framework for defining reading knowledge and skills.

Discuss this simple view with your mentor and consider how it applies to one of your classes. Which students fit into each of the four categories represented
Study the diagram of the reading comprehensive house and discuss with your mentor the importance of each element of word reading and language comprehension.

Watch the DfE video Reading in secondary students.

This video summarises key findings from research on reading in secondary students. It points out that students’ reading needs might emerge when they are faced with more challenging texts at secondary school and this cannot be ignored by teachers.

Reading in the geography classroom

During geography lessons we expect students to read from a variety of written sources – texts, whiteboards, the internet, exercise books. Yet, typically we give students very little time to spend reading during a lesson. Roberts (2003) reports on research that showed that students have very little opportunity for sustained reading in geography and short-bursts of reading were unlikely to lead to the development of understanding.

Observing reading in geography lessons

Over several lessons with different age-groups, focus on the different types of reading that students engage in:

Note down the different text types they read and the source of that text.
Estimate the percentage of time students were ‘reading’ compared with listening or talking in the lesson.
What is the purpose of the reading? What is the teacher asking of students?
Do you observe any common difficulties experienced in their reading? How can this be overcome?
What challenges are met by weaker readers?
What homework was set, and how much reading was involved?

Discuss your observations with the teachers and discuss the reading expectations they have of their students and what activities they use to develop reading skills.

Watch the DfE video Choosing curriculum texts and think carefully about the texts you choose to deliver the geography curriculum.
See Textbooks which is section 3.2 in Literacy in Geography. Consider the challenges that the geography textbooks used in your school might present to your students.
Watch the DfE video Identifying text features which focuses on the importance of being explicit about the features of the types of texts used in geography lessons.

We commonly use a wide variety of texts in geography lessons, for example case studies, newspaper reports, science articles, eye-witness accounts and travelogues. Ensure your students are clear about the purpose of the text they are reading and consider carefully how you can explore the features of each text type with students.

Watch the DfE video Reading in lessons which provides practical guidance on strategies.

Students can read independently or as a class led by the teacher or students. They can read aloud or silently. Vary your approach according to the type of text and the purpose for reading it. For more challenging texts, you may want to read it aloud to the class yourself, at least at first.

Make sure you know which students are confident in reading aloud and those who might need support because you do not want to demotivate struggling readers. Some students may feel more confident if they are allowed to prepare in advance for reading aloud.

Reading for meaning in the geography classroom

It is important that key stage 3 students read for meaning. Too often in geography lessons, students read text without having to think about it at all! Discuss with your geography mentor or geography teachers the value of guided reading tasks. Do they think comprehension activities or ‘reading around the class’ – both activities commonly seen in geography lessons – can contribute to reading for meaning?

Watch the DfE video Activating background knowledge and think carefully about the knowledge students may need to access the text.

Before using a piece of text think how to provide support for students. When you are preparing a lesson consider both the disciplinary and non-disciplinary background knowledge that students will need to engage with the ideas in a text. Can you tease out this in discussion from their prior knowledge or might it be completely new and need an explanation? Providing images with the text can be helpful.

You might consider reading difficult text out loud or editing it. Check that the vocabulary is known and encourage students to compile their own glossaries of specialist vocabulary. You could also find out the reading age of text you have written – ask the English department how to do this.

Read Bishop and Preece (2024) and study their guided reading task (Figure 2). This has been designed to take in the EEF’s (2021) recommendations on reading strategies. Consider how you could design a similar guided reading task for one of the topics you are currently teaching.
Read Preece (2025) Chapter 9 on developing reading skills.

Consider carefully what you ask your students to read and how you ask them to engage with and use the text. These are the crucial factors in determining what geographical learning they gain from it. If you ask them to read a long article, consider how to structure their reading by setting comprehension-type questions or providing a framework for notes. Teach them how to skim a source first to decide whether it has information worth focussing on.

Watch the DfE video Teaching reading comprehension and consider how you can focus on explicitly teaching strategies for students to use to comprehend texts.

Support your students to interact with the text and encourage them to re-read sections slowly or seek help if they do not understand it.

Consider carefully each of the comprehension strategies that are explained in the video: clarifying; prediction; questioning; summarising; visualisation; inference’. Plan your lessons to include modelling each of these with students over time, or set tasks so they develop competence in each comprehension strategy and can use it for themselves.

Watch the DfE video Checking student comprehension that considers strategies to check that students are comprehending what they are reading.

It is easy to assume that when students are fluent readers they always comprehend the text. This is not always so, even when their reading appears accurate and fluent, so it is important to check their understanding.

Question students about what they have read and their interpretations and opinions. Ask them to summarise what they have found out to check for any misunderstandings before you move on. However, be realistic and focus on the core understandings. You can spend a lot of time on this otherwise, and can return, if necessary, to support any student/s who need further help.

Active reading strategies in geography

Harris (2017) explains the importance of involving students actively with texts in geography lessons, rather than passively ‘skim reading’. Students need to engage fully with the information they read and make connections with their existing knowledge if they are to learn.

He suggests practical approaches and recommends geography teachers to use a ‘predict’, ‘question’, ‘clarify’ and ‘summarise’ sequence to encourage students to ask questions, research for information and dissect and analyse the text.

Explore the different active reading strategies to encourage students to engage with text and read it more closely for geographical meaning. These include card sorting activities, highlighting words and phrases and to use information from texts to create bullet points, diagrams or complete a chart.

There are also ‘cloze’ procedures you could use. Discuss these, and other suggestions, with your geography mentor or other teachers and read about different options in the following readings:

Active reading in section 3.3 in Literacy in Geography.
Harris (2017) suggests several techniques to get students to engage with text and read effectively.
Walshe (2017) describes the stages of the EXIT (extending interactions with text) model to engage with geographical texts.
To support weaker readers, see Resources for poor readers and Westoby (1996). Both give practical advice on designing and writing worksheets that are easier for students to read and similar principles can be considered when selected published texts to use.

Directed activities related to texts (DARTs)

DARTs are a set of strategies frequently used to engage students in reading and understanding text. Biddulph et al (2021) summarised two types of DARTS that are used in geography:

Reconstruction DARTs – text is altered in some way so that pupils can reconstruct it, perhaps by printing it in sections on card. Sequencing text and diagram completion are other examples of this form of DARTs, where students complete a task after focusing on detailed reading of the text.
ARTs – the text is presented as a whole with activities designed to enable pupils to analyse its components (by underlining, highlighting or labelling). The text is then reconstructed into a simpler form (in lists, tables, flow diagrams, and annotated maps and diagrams).

See Roberts (2023) Figure 20.1 for details of analysis and reconstruction DARTs and Figure 20.2 for examples of instructions you can use. Read chapter 20, which provides further details about DARTs activities and advice on how they can be used in geography classrooms.

Wider reading

Think ‘outside of the box’ when deciding what students should read in your lessons. Fiction, travelogues, and poems all have role, particularly to generate a ‘sense of place’.

• Refer to this KS3 reading list from the GA’s Secondary Phase Committee.

A useful resource for identifying texts and resources for wider reading is Reteach. This is a free resource for teaches that provides reading lists for geography topics that includes non-fiction and storytelling books that encourage reading from different perspectives and diverse voices.

Kate Stocking takes the idea further and advocates the use of carefully selecting extracts, texts and books for use in teaching geography

Refer to Teaching Geography through books (Part 1) and Teaching Geography through books (Part 2)

Look at these references for ideas:

Jouhal, S. (2021) Geography reading in the classroom, PowerPoint from GA Conference 2021.
GA Physical Geography Special Interest Group (2025) Prisoners of Geography- Physical Geography and global politics mapped out.
Rackley, K.M. and Owen, C. (2023) ‘Rethinking Wider Reading through the Reteach Project’, GA Conference Presentation, April. (Refer to the slide Why is ‘wider [extensive] reading’ important for learners?)
Rackley, K.M. and Owen, C. (2024) ‘Reframing the role of reading in geography teacher development’, Teaching Geography, Spring.
Trolley, S. (2020) ‘Prisoners of Geography? How contextualising a book can develop students’ understanding of geography’, Teaching Geography, Summer.
Rawling, E. (2010) ‘The Severn was brown, and the Severn was blue’ – A place for poetry in school geography?, Teaching Geography, Autumn.
Taylor, R. (2008) ‘Using Horrible Geographies’, Teaching Geography, Spring.

Directed activities related to texts (DARTs)

DARTs are set of strategies frequently used to engage students in reading and understanding text. Biddulph et al (2021) summarised two types of DARTS that are used in geography:

Reconstruction DARTs – text is altered in some way so that pupils can reconstruct it, perhaps by printing it in sections on card. Sequencing text and diagram completion are other examples of this form of DARTs, where students complete a task after focusing on detailed reading of the text.
Analysis and reconstruction DARTs – the text is presented as a whole with activities designed to enable pupils to analyse its components (by underlining, highlighting or labelling). The text is then reconstructed into a simpler form (in lists, tables, flow diagrams, and annotated maps and diagrams).
See Roberts (2023) Figure 20.1 for details of analysis and reconstruction DARTs and Figure 20.2 for examples of instructions you can use. Read chapter 20, which provides further details about DARTs activities and advice on how they can be used in geography classrooms.

Active reading strategies in geography

There are also ‘cloze’ procedures you could use. Discuss these, and other suggestions, with your geography mentor or other teachers and read about different options in the following readings:

Active reading in section 3.3 in Literacy in Geography.
Harris (2017) suggests several techniques to get students to engage with text and read effectively.
Walshe (2017) describes the stages of the EXIT (extending interactions with text) model to engage with geographical texts.
To support weaker readers, see Resources for poor readers and Westoby (1996). Both give practical advice on designing and writing worksheets that are easier for students to read and similar principles can be considered when selected published texts to use.

Reading and information literacy for older students

Key stage 4 and A level students require more advance reading skills that are often described as information literacy. These are associated with the location, evaluation, synthesis, and effective use of information resources.

Read Waller et al (2016) to find out about the importance of information literacy skills in the context of GCSE and A level curricula and the transition to university. It includes teaching ideas to encourage students to engage with a more diverse mix of sources and undertake independent research reducing their over-reliance on course textbooks.

Fry (2024) draws our attention to emphasizing the importance of engaging A Level students with challenging texts and promoting critical thinking. He refers to Doug Lemov’s four goals for students’ reading that they should: ‘read harder texts; ‘close read’ texts rigorously and intentionally; read more non-fiction, more effectively; and write more effectively in response to texts.’ emphasizing the importance of engaging with challenging texts and promoting critical thinking.

Fry argues that the writing of James Lovelock meets these goals and can introduce students to fundamental geographical ideas. Lovelock is best known for his Gaia hypothesis and Fry suggests that by reading his texts, A Level students ‘both learn interesting and challenging geography while learning the rudiments of great writing.’

Try Fry’s suggestion of asking students to read We Belong to Gaia (Lovelock, 2021). This is a short text that can be read one chapter each week and then discussed. GA members can download the resources for the Fry article Guided reading of Gaia that provides week by week discussion points you can use)

Finn (2022) encourages geography teachers to help to foster a culture for post-16 students where reading can be part of ‘fitting in’ by giving time and space to talk about what students are reading for pleasure and new perspectives.

Refer to these 125 books for A level students to read from the GA’s Post-16 and HE Phase Committee.
Refer to ‘Bookworm’s recommendations for geographers‘ by Ellie Barker and Naomi Andersson in Geography Matters, Spring 2023 from the GA’s Post-16 and HE Phase Committee.

Finn also discusses how teachers should help A level students to read with purpose, and in particular to use the SQ3R approach. This is to:

Survey (S): initially, skim and scan looking for relevant material
Question (Q): generate questions about the content and ask ‘how could this text be beneficial for me?’
Read (R1): use the work done in the two previous steps to help focus when reading the text
Recite (R2): recite the answers to their initial questions, using their own words (in oral or written form)
Review (R3): after the reading is completed, repeat back to themselves what the main ideas of the text were, by using their own words.

Finn is writing from the perspective of a university tutor and he consider two key ‘shifts’ he has observed in students’ reading when they move to a university setting. The first is shifting from ‘reading for information’ to ‘reading for arguments’.

The second is when students’ shift from trying to understand everything on first reading, to seeing themselves as joining an ongoing ‘conversation’ and reading to fill in the ‘backstory’. He advocates giving post-16 students opportunities to approach reading in this way prior to their university study.

Reading

Biddulph, M., Lambert, D. and Balderstone, D. (2021) Learning to Teach Geography in the Secondary School: A Companion to School Experience, 4th edition. London: Routledge, pp 119-121.
Bishop, B and Preece, D (2024) ‘Developing literacy across the geography curriculum using Scarborough’s ‘reading rope’, Teaching Geography, Spring.
Finn, M. (2022) ‘Reading for a degree: transitions to higher education’, Teaching Geography, Spring.
Fry, W. (2024) ‘Teaching Gaia’, Teaching Geography, Spring.
Harris, M. (2017) Becoming an Outstanding Geography Teacher, Routledge. Chapter 8: Literacy in geography.
Preece, D. (2025) Geography in Action, London: Hachette Learning.
Ricketts, J. (2025) Supporting reading in secondary school: Guidance and workbook for all secondary school practitioners, DfE.
Roberts, M. (2003) Learning through enquiry: Making sense of geography in the key stage 3 classroom, Sheffield: Geographical Association. Chapter 5.
Roberts, M. (2023) Geography through Enquiry: An approach to teaching and learning in the secondary school, Second edition. Sheffield: Geographical Association. Chapter 20: ‘Directed activities related to text (DARTS)’.
Waller, R., Adams, C., Miller, G. and Schultz, D.M. (2016) ‘Encouraging students to read beyond the core text’, Teaching Geography, Autumn.
Walshe, N. (2017) ‘Literacy’ in Jones, M. (ed) Secondary Geography Handbook. Sheffield: Geographical Association, Chapter 15, pp 207-10.
Westoby, G. (1996) ‘Making reading easier in geography’, Teaching Geography, July.
Walshe, N. (2017) ‘Literacy’ in Jones, M. (ed) Secondary Geography Handbook. Sheffield: Geographical Association.