The development of English language learners’ academic literacy is a key issue in their successful transition to an undergraduate programme. Many students have achieved a relatively high degree of oral competence, while their academic reading and writing remains comparatively undeveloped. This is particularly true for those who (for any number of reasons) have experienced educational difficulties or disruption. These learners are generally not ‘practised’ readers, and in fact may do little reading apart from set classroom texts, yet many continue to have legitimate aspirations to study at a higher level. This presentation reports on an on-going study of a group of advanced L2 students in a bridging programme. The study explores the impact of students’ educational, social and language backgrounds on their reading attitudes and habits, and also incorporates an action research component by evaluating the effectiveness of an extensive reading programme. Data collection is by way of questionnaires, interviews, reflections, and narrative frames, and initial results seem to confirm a connection between first and second language literacy, and the importance of having a targeted reading programme to help remediate relevant literacy issues.