Students who demonstrate perennial difficulties with researched writing typically have poor reading skills. Those who do not improve significantly as readers and writers in first year composition, if they do not drop out, often struggle throughout college. Even when students are given explicit and enhanced instruction in reading and adjustments are made to curriculum to address demonstrated student weaknesses, a lack of synthesis skills is still evidenced in student researched writing for upper-level writing. Teachers at all levels across all content areas must realize that many students misunderstand or cannot understand the content being taught, and strategically unwrap assigned readings so that students can progress as writers and readers of complex texts. Instructors who want students to read for content should teach summary skills. Instructors who want students to read structurally and analyze conventions of genre must explicitly direct students how to analyze and interpret complex text. Postsecondary instructors must reach agreement on how to coordinate instruction in reading and writing, especially in writing intensive classrooms where students are assigned complex texts.