This article examines the challenges and demands--particularly those relating to the reading of Latin texts in the original--faced by Classics students in England in their first year of university study. Arguing that the examination system in schools encourages rote learning of texts rather than the development of reading skills, the article outlines an approach adopted with first-year students at the University of Cambridge to help them develop the reading strategies, especially the predictive skills, needed to move from laborious translation and memorization to confident, fluent reading of Latin texts. After setting this approach in a wider context the article concludes with a brief consideration of lessons to be learnt from a project in Belgium to introduce the "linear" approach to reading Latin. (Contains 6 notes.)