Generation 1 learners are adult-arrival immigrants who enter U.S. education through adult ESL. Verbatim speech was collected from interviews and observations of six Generation 1 learners in their first college term. This taxonomic analysis presents learners' descriptions of their college reading. Learners held complex understandings of reading, including surface-level and deep-processing strategies (Horning, 2011). However, within Model of Domain Learning (MDL) theory (Alexander, 2005), learners engaged mostly in the acclimation stage because of new vocabulary and content struggles. Although learners invested their previous experiences into their college student identities (Norton, 2013), faculty focused on vocabulary, failing to recognize learners' previous reading skills development. Findings suggest the need to balance language and literacy skills development as well as implications for MDL.