How to Help College Students With Literacy When They’re Capable but Falling Behind
Javier sat across from me during office hours, rain still dotting his backpack, while a 14-page article on housing policy sat open on his laptop. He had highlighter marks in nearly every paragraph. When I asked what the author was arguing, he looked at the screen for a long time.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I read it twice. I just… can’t get the words to stay in order.”
Javier was a first-year student interested in criminal justice. He could talk for ten minutes about a podcast he’d heard on civil rights, but a printed argument turned him into someone who sounded unprepared and unsure. That gap is hard for many college students to explain. They are not “nonreaders.” They can read signs, messages, lyrics, and social media. What overwhelms them is college literacy: dense sentences, 60-page readings, vocabulary they only meet in textbooks, assignment prompts written like legal documents, and essays that require them to organize ideas in formal academic language.
If you only see the final grades, it can look like laziness. Students may skip readings, rush discussion posts, copy phrases from sources, or avoid asking questions. I’ve learned to look earlier in the process. In Javier’s case, the PDF was a scanned document, so he couldn’t highlight cleanly or enlarge the text without the page jumping. He was also trying to read the whole article in one sitting between chemistry lab and dinner.
I moved my chair slightly and asked him to show me what he did when he sat down to read. That question matters more than “Did you do the reading?” It reveals whether the student opens a blurry phone scan, loses the prompt in five browser tabs, or stares at one paragraph for 20 minutes.
I showed Javier the text-to-speech setting on his laptop. We exported the article as a PDF, turned on the voice, and followed along as the words were highlighted. At first he laughed and said it felt like cheating. I told him listening to a difficult text is no more cheating than listening to a lecture. The goal was to understand the argument; decoding every word on the page was only one way in.
That small change made a visible difference. He could hear where sentences broke. He stopped after two paragraphs and said, “Oh, he’s saying the law looks neutral, but it affects neighborhoods differently.” That was the idea he had been unable to pull from the page alone.
For parents and teachers, the first practical step is often environmental, not emotional. Make sure readings are actual text files, not pictures of pages. Show students how to use text-to-speech, enlarged text, margins adjusted to 65 characters, or a simple reader view. If a student has to fight the format, they have less energy left for thinking.
I also started breaking my readings into smaller pieces. Instead of “Read Chapter 3 by Thursday,” I would post: Tuesday, pages 47–52, mark one claim; Wednesday, pages 53–58, write one question; Thursday, bring the claim and question. Students with literacy struggles often know how to read sentences but do not know how to pace a long assignment. A three-day structure gives them a way through.
In class, I stopped doing round-robin reading. It may feel harmless, but for a student who reads slowly, mispronounces words, or loses his place, it turns every discussion into a possible moment of shame. I now share questions beforehand, state them aloud, and allow students to answer in discussion posts, short audio recordings, or small groups before speaking to the whole class. I also include a plain-language version of every essay prompt with the steps listed separately.
Javier’s writing showed the same pattern as his reading. His ideas were strong, but his sentences ran together, and spelling errors made his arguments look weaker than they were. He would type “probly” and “defendent,” then delete whole paragraphs because he thought the paper sounded “stupid.”
We began using voice memos. I would ask, “What is one thing the author believes, and what do you think?” He would speak for 90 seconds into his phone, then listen back and type three sentences. I gave him a simple frame: “The author argues ____. I think ____ because ____. One example is ____.” Frames like these are not meant to make every paper sound the same forever. They are training wheels. They help a student get language onto the page before the inner critic takes over.
When he had a draft, I did not mark every comma. That only teaches students to depend on an editor. Instead, I marked two or three patterns: missing plural endings, run-on sentences, and citations without authors. We worked on one pattern at a time. For proofreading, he used the find tool to search for “there” and “their,” and he read his paper aloud slowly enough to hear where ideas ended. Text-to-speech also helped; when the robot voice read a missing word, he could hear the gap immediately.
Parents can use many of the same approaches without taking over the work. If your student allows it, look at the assignment instructions and ask, “What exactly do you have to turn in, and what part is due first?” Help them set up a reading schedule or a 25-minute timer. Offer to sit nearby while they email the writing center or disability services. Do not rewrite the essay. The sentence that matters most is, “I can help you find the office, but you send the message.”
That distinction matters because college students are adults. They may need support, but they also need practice asking for it. If a student has a history of reading struggles, slow reading, spelling problems, or trouble with foreign languages, the campus disability resource office may be able to arrange extended test time, accessible texts, or note-taking support. I give students the office information in writing and keep the request simple: “Email them and say you have trouble keeping up with reading and writing and want to ask about accommodations.” The staff can take it from there.
Not every student who struggles has dyslexia or a formal disability. Some are returning to school after years away. Some learned English later. Some attended high schools where long reading assignments were rare. College literacy also depends on background knowledge. A student who has never heard of zoning laws, appellate courts, or rhetorical devices has to learn both the concepts and the words at the same time. A short glossary helps—five to eight terms, each used in a plain sentence, not a dictionary definition copied onto a slide.
Javier did not transform into a confident reader overnight. He still forgot assignments sometimes. His first research paper had paragraphs that jumped from idea to idea, and he nearly withdrew from a history class after a failed quiz. But he kept using the voice tool, came to office hours with three marked sentences instead of a fully highlighted article, and learned to ask for an extra day before the due date instead of disappearing.
A few weeks ago, he arrived soaked from the rain again, dropped his bag, and said, “I listened to that stupid article twice. I still hate it, but I get it.” His paper had a B- idea with C-level mechanics. We worked on one paragraph. There will be more papers, more confusing PDFs, and more days when the words feel crowded. That afternoon, though, he knew what the author was arguing, and he knew what he wanted to say. For now, that is enough to build on.
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