Purpose: The purpose of the research reported in this paper was to examine the potential usefulness of animated learning materials for supporting students with dyslexia in a UK higher education setting. Design/methodology/approach: An experiment was conducted with a set of 13 undergraduate computing students with dyslexia and a control group of 13 non-dyslexic undergraduate computing students. Findings: Overall it appeared that appropriate animated learning materials were perceived as being more useful than equivalent static learning materials by both the students with dyslexia and the control group of non-dyslexic students. However, the control group appeared to find them more useful than the students with dyslexia. Research limitations/implications: Although the experiment reported in this paper was small in scale it did appear to indicate that animated learning materials may potentially be useful for undergraduate students with (and without) dyslexia. Originality/value: There appears to have been little research done in the area of animated learning materials in a higher education setting and in particular with regard to students with dyslexia. (Contains 5 figures and 1 table.)