Can you get a pdf version of the paper and use a reader?

Use a screen reader, Narrator is built into windows if you don't feel like using NVDA or something. Don't make the mistake of trying to do so much visually. Some people get bad headaches. For me, it was just a sort of pain below my brow that eased with resting my eyes. Still, reading visually is slow and inefficient if you have a visual impairment, at least, it was for me. Then my vision got worse, and I switched to a screen reader full time. I made the mistake in college of trying to do everything visually and it lead to my downfall.

Even though I have the vision to read enlarged text on a computer screen, I still use text to speech at a fast rate. I'd highly recommend you do that for all texts. Otherwise you're going to take more time doing less work.

Reading electronically with inverted colors helps my eyes from being tired

Readers are good. Also learning to skim texts effectively will help.

If the essay was too long for you to physically read did you consider using a text to speech screen reader, I try to get everything in Braille but most of the time I must use my screen reader, I have a Mac and its built in called Voiceover.

Can you cover the lines you aren’t reading with a ruler or another piece of paper to help you stay focused on the line you’re on? I have nystagmus too and only realized this was helpful after I was done with uni.

I also find larger text to be harder to read then the next comfortable smaller font because I have less distance to cover.

I use a digital version with color inversion (white text on black). It's much easier on my eyes and I can read at a normal speed.

As other people have said, using a reader is good, but it's only a temporary solution and you're still going to have problems with reading large amounts in later years of school and at university. Since reading large print is difficult due to your vision impairment, you should seriously think about learning to read braille; it will definitely mae reading a much more enjoyable experience.