In an era of information overload, learners must not only acquire new knowledge but also learn to discard outdated or ineffective knowledge. A key challenge in higher education is that students apply everyday reading patterns ill-suited to academic texts. To address this, we present a virtual companion that supports students in identifying, reflecting on, and discarding ineffective reading patterns. The virtual companion supports unlearning ineffective reading patterns that hinder text understanding. Using a multi-step design science research approach, we derived design requirements from literature and empirical insights, implemented key features, and evaluated the virtual unlearning companion twice with students from diverse backgrounds. Our contribution is twofold: a digital tool to enhance hybrid learning environments and the advancement of unlearning as a meta-competence essential for continuous adaptation in higher education.