Many students wish they knew a faster way to take notes or a more effective way to study. 

The Literacy Center, located in Tate Page Hall, and its program, College Reading Success, wants to help students improve those skills. Starting this month, the Center will have several workshops to aid WKU students. 

Reading and comprehension services for students have existed in other forms for many years, but the Literacy Center was only recently created in 2010. 

The College Reading Success program was created because of this need among college students’ to have assistance, Kristy Cartwright, one of the Literacy Center’s instructors, said.

“While students come to college knowing how to read, many are not prepared for the rigors of college-level reading,” she said. “Some students have issues with the high volume of reading, the pace with which readings are assigned, or a highly technical and academic vocabulary that they have not been exposed to previously.”

According to the ALIVE Center for Community Partnership, the Literacy Center provides individualized diagnostic evaluations and intervention for students in the first through 12th grades, along with adult learners.

The number of students at each session varies depending on the topic, but some sessions have had more than 60 students in attendance. 

Students respond positively to the program, according to another instructor at the Literacy Center, Jeremy Logsdon.

“We see many repeat students, and we have also had students tell us that the strategies we offer were instrumental in helping them earn higher grades in their coursework,” he said.

There are refreshments at each session, as well as giveaways that include useful items, such as books and flash drives, and at the end of each semester, a Student Success Basket is given away.

Topics for the program are selected based on students’ feedback and needs. The first session is a general forum, and from there, help ranges from time management to reading strategies.

The Literacy Center also hosts a book club for students. The book that’s going to be discussed this semester is “The Undertaker’s Daughter” by Kate Mayfield, a WKU alumna. The book club meets every other Wednesday, just as College Reading Success does. 

A Pop Culture Book Club will start this semester, meeting one Friday a month starting Feb. 20. The first book up for discussion is “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Books are selected according to student input.

Sessions are held every other Wednesday in room 401 of Tate Page from 1 to 2 p.m.