One of the strategic objectives of the European Union is to achieve the best possible quality in the teaching-learning processes, and the ability to read is one of the most important competency for the current information society. The definition of reading competence has been subject to constant modifications to reflect changes in societies, economies, cultures and education levels. It is a complex and functional skill, covering processes related to the decoding and comprehension of the text.With this work we intend to comparative approach to the reading competence of first year students from Alexander Dubcek University of Trencín and from University of Valencia, and to detect and identificate their main problems with academic texts commonly used in their studies. We will start with a questionnaire with a series of basic questions, a work from a text and in-depth interviews with selected students, in order to obtain conclusions regarding their reading ability.