Students can learn to Read Faster

The organized student focuses on getting work done quickly and well.  Here’s how to teach your child to read faster.

The three tricks to faster reading are:

1. Stay focused, by continually asking questions.
2. Read different types of materials at different rates.
3. Pace oneself with an index card or a finger in the margin—learning to read multiple words per eye fixation.

The first trick to reading faster is to keep asking and answering questions about the material being read. This keeps the learner involved and focused, so she only needs to read the material once!

The second trick is to recognize that people are allowed (and strongly encouraged!) to read different materials at different rates, depending on the type of material and the goal. Skimming or even skipping sections doesn’t make someone a less conscientious student—just a more effective one. For some assignments, you might read carefully the first and last paragraphs of a section, and read the part in between more rapidly, or perhaps even skim or skip certain sections.

The third trick is to increase the actual reading speed.

• Start by determining her baseline reading speed, so she can monitor her progress. Find a several page chapter and time how long it takes to read it in minutes. To determine the WPM (Words Per Minute) rate, divide the number of words in the passage by the reading time (in minutes). Check for adequate comprehension, by asking the student to write down main ideas about what she read. She should be able to remember one main idea for each minute of reading. (For example, if she reads for five minutes, she should be able to jot down five main ideas if she comprehends well enough.)
• Keep setting a target reading rate a little higher than her current rate.
• Practice the faster pace at least fifteen minutes per day.
• Teach her to not move her lips! At least practice not doing it on easy material first.
• She should not to say the words to herself—unless she is a strong auditory learner and depends on this inner voice to comprehend what she is reading.
• Have her run her pen or finger down the page to pace herself.
• If needed, she can cover the material with an index card (from the top, moving downward), to pace herself and to discourage mindless rereading of the material. (She’ll notice every time she has to remove the card to reread material.)
• Teach her to read several words as a group at once, rather than each word individually.  Here’s what slow and fast readers visually take in with each movement of the eyes:
  • Slow reader: Waffles / is / the / cutest / dog / that / I / know, / even / though / his / eyes / are/ too / big / and / his / tongue / is / always / hanging / out.
  • Fast reader: Waffles is / the cutest dog / that I know /, even though his / eyes are too big / and his tongue / is always hanging out.

Note that the slower reader took twenty-two stops to read a sentence, while the faster reader too only seven stops. By the time she reaches college, she should hopefully take in six words per fixation. Chart her WPM progress over the next few weeks. Keep it up!

 By: Dr. Martin Kutscher