4 - Reading Strategies

Summary

Higher education courses generally demand students to undertake enormous amounts of reading. It is therefore important for students with dyslexia to develop effective approaches to reading as they may become overwhelmed or frustrated due to their slower reading speeds and the amount of time taken to read to comprehend information. As such, this chapter featuring what dyslexic university students say about the way they read includes providing advice on using selected reading methods, such as the preview, ask and answer questions, summarise, and synthesis (PASS) strategy, survey, question, read, recite, and review (SQ3R) strategy, employing skimming and scanning approaches, reading using selectivity to minimise the amount of unnecessary reading, utilising colour coded highlighting, making notes in the form of summaries of the readings, using metacognitive awareness when reading, for example, picking the right environment to read in and taking breaks when feeling overwhelmed or tired, using multisensory methods, and using technology to read. Each one of the reading strategies specified above is presented in the chapter as a clear step-by-step method to apply to reading. That way the reader can trial out, experiment, and select a technique or combination of strategies appropriate for fulfilling their purpose in reading academically.