Advice from my Modernist Professor at Rutgers: Listen to as much of Finnegans Wake as possible or read aloud.  Since Joyce is capturing spoken language in his writing and / or stream-of-consciousness (as spoken word in the head), more meaning is naturally revealed this way. Good idea.

Also, its a good idea to take advantage of such online communities dedicated to FW - these likely will be more useful than the existing print research AND more up to date.

The spoken word approach to Ulysses is very successful. I listened to Ulysses the first time through on a complete book-on-tape and what she says is true. It's pretty legible on hearing.

Online gloss to Finnegan's Wake - this should be useful:

http://finwake.com/

I also have a book of annotations.