About Our Institute

What We Do

The University of Chicago’s Academic and Professional Reading Institute (APRI) enables its participants to proficiently read and integrate secondary research literature into their work, meeting critical graduate requirements and job-specific duties. We are dedicated to equipping graduate students, academics, and other professionals with the advanced reading skills essential for their disciplines.

We accomplish this through:

A comprehensive suite of non-credit online seminars designed to deliver real-world skills
A pioneering assessment tool—the Academic Reading Comprehension Assessment (ARCA)

Our seminars and assessment (ARCA) were developed from in-depth pedagogical expertise and pioneering research, refined through years of practice and success at the University of Chicago. They are now available to graduate students, academics, and other professionals across North America.

The Need for Changing the Way Academic Reading is Taught and Tested

For well over a hundred years, the ability to read scholarly literature in another language was defined by translation. Translation tests and the courses taken to prepare for them, neither measure nor deliver advanced reading skills needed in the real world.

These courses and tests often become obstacles to graduate students’ progress, and individuals already engaged in academic or professional careers recognize that they do not need to translate an article, chapter, or report – they need to read and comprehend it.

A Focus on Comprehension vs Translation

APRI responds to the growing need for enhanced reading-for-research skills in globally interconnected academic and professional communities. With seminars designed for optimal virtual learning in a wide array of languages, APRI leverages pioneering research and innovative assessments to ensure participants excel in their scholarly and professional endeavors.

Rethinking the Reading Requirement

The University of Chicago has transformed the way scholarly reading skills are assessed, and the way these skills are delivered. It is the sole university in North America to have researched, designed, and developed an assessment to measure these reading skills, the Academic Reading Comprehension Assessment (ARCA), and to design innovative, effective seminars to deliver them.

Transforming the Testing Method

The ARCA was designed based on groundbreaking domain analysis research defining the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to access and read secondary literature in another language.

Redesigning the Coursework

Summer online Reading for Research seminars prepare participants to read and comprehend discipline-specific scholarly resources in a secondary research language.

Through APRI’s seminars, participants will be able to:

Build on foundational knowledge of a given language
Become successful readers of research by working intensively with academic texts in their own disciplines
Analytically read texts and synthesize their key points, arguments, and evidence, then utilize this information in their own work
Become familiar with journals and other key resources in their field
Take Foundational Reading seminars to prepare themselves for Reading for Research seminars with no or limited knowledge of a language

In an ever-expanding and globally connected world, where resources around the world are available—the University of Chicago APRI stands as the premier institute for teaching, testing, and certifying the real-world, advanced reading skills needed to access resources in world languages in any discipline.

Applications open January 31, 2025. Sign up for updates.