The importance of reading competencies in educational achievement at all levels has long been recognised by educators, The perceived decline in reading competencies of first year students at the National University of Samoa (NUS) has been a point of discussion, as various teaching and learning strategies have been proposed to address these problems. The methodology of this research project is qualitative and quantitative. Research tools included: reading age assessments, a questionnaire, interviews, as well as application of the reading programme, Science Research Associates (SRA) reading laboratory, to lift levels of achievement. In this paper, the research is contextualised and the main findings are discussed in detail. Key findings are that: students spent little time reading, that in many homes there were few reading materials and that students’ reading ages were under-developed.
