Learning Support

The best way to improve your reading skills is to practice, practice, practice. Lots of subjects require you to read long texts, and college students are also encouraged to read around their subjects to improve their knowledge and understanding. But what if you’re a slow reader, if you find reading difficult, or if you just don’t enjoy it?
Here are a few tips from the Learning Support department to help you with reading issues - and don’t forget to visit the Study centre if you’re really struggling and need help.

Ask for support in the Study Centre (room 235, top of the ILC)
If Read & Write Gold or other software doesn’t quite work for you, you can always ask for help in the Study Centre with proofreading work or reading through questions and texts to make sure you understand them.

Use Audiobooks

• If you’re studying long texts, for example whole novels for English Literature, and are worried that your slow reading speed may hold you back, you can find out if there is an audio book available.
• Older texts, e.g. from before the beginning of the 20th Century, are sometimes available for free online.
• You may also find some recordings available in the college library or your local library. Audiobook CDs can be purchased from most bookshops, or audiobooks can be downloaded from Amazon (including Kindle), Audible, iTunes, and lots of other online shops and apps.
• Make sure they are the full text that you are studying (so not ‘abridged’ or ‘excerpts’).

Find coping strategies to help with visual stress

• Students with dyslexia or Irlen Syndrome may find words move around the page as they’re trying to read. For some, using coloured (tinted) glasses or coloured reading rulers can help to stop that from happening.
• If you have never tried coloured rulers before and want to see if any work for you, pop up to the Study Centre and ask to speak to someone. We have a few sample rulers which may help you to decide which colour might work for you so that you can purchase the right one.
• Depending on where you buy them from and which colour you need, they can vary in price, but they are usually not too expensive - for instance, 2 magenta coloured reading rulers are currently less than £3 on Amazon.
• Where possible, you may want to ask your tutors if they can print your handouts on different coloured paper, or use a font that is easier for you to read (Arial is often easier than Times New Roman, for instance).
• If you have the same problem with reading on the computer screen - e.g. computer glare from the white backgrounds - you can use Read & Write Gold to produce colour strips on screen or to adapt the entire screen to a colour that works for you.  Ask in the Study Centre for more information on this, or check out the online tutorials.
• If you suffer from visual stress and have never been tested for dyslexia, you may want to discuss your problems with the Study Centre. It is also worth having a sight test at an opticians just to make sure it is not related to problems with your vision.

Test your Readability
If you really don’t enjoy reading, it could be that you are trying to read texts which are too difficult for you at present. The British Dyslexia Association recommend trying a ‘Readability’ test to make sure you can understand, and therefore enjoy, a text:
“A simple method is called the Five Finger Test:

• Choose a book you like.
• Open it in the middle.
• Try to find a page without pictures.
• Start reading at the top. Go on till you reach a word you do not know.
• Put your little finger on it.
• Continue reading. Put a finger on each word you do not know.

If you run out of fingers before you get to the bottom of the page, the book is probably too difficult for independent reading.”
If you have to read a difficult text for your college work, take your time over it and use a dictionary or subject glossary to help you with those words you don’t yet understand. If you don’t have a subject glossary yet, make your own using a small notebook, an A4 sheet for the front of your files which you can keep adding to (written or typed) or a text writer on your smartphone / tablet / notebook / laptop (e.g. Apple’s Notes, Microsoft’s OneNote or Google keep).