This article examines how literate actions of reading texts in academic contexts are characterized in semi-structured interviews with first-year and senior students at a Brazilian federal university. Adopting a social perspective of literacy and an ethnographic perspective, the analysis reveals that the literate action of reading texts is associated with a practice of literacy whose nature is schooled--that is, constituted and oriented by schooling goals and assessment logic--and relatively tacit for its participants. It also shows that the purpose of reading in undergraduate courses is the same as in secondary and high school. In this perspective, students are asked to read in order to fulfil a given pedagogical activity--and the texts proposed for reading in the classroom automatically become objects of teaching. The article concludes that educators need to put more attention on the teaching of reading in academic contexts, from incentives to development of a reflexive posture in relation to aims and ways in which reading happens in academic contexts, contributing to the expansion of students' academic literacy practices.