This article investigates the reading practices of 45 EFL Yemeni students using the "learning by design" framework. The framework organizes the teaching and learning of literacy into four processes: experiencing, conceptualising, analysing, and applying. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to collect data on a sample of students studying English as a foreign language at a university in Yemen. The researchers collected quantitative data through a questionnaire and gathered qualitative data using semistructured interviews guided by the research objectives. The findings reveal that the use of reading practices by this group of students was underdeveloped in all four processes. Findings also reveal that vocabulary difficulties, complex sentence structures, and inability to use reading strategies are some of the serious challenges faced by Yemeni students when reading in English. These findings suggest that the reading practices and reading abilities of Yemeni students are still limited, even at the tertiary level, in terms of meeting the multiliterate requirements for reading effectively in a multimodal world.