Mankind gave birth to culture, not for contemporaries to scroll through the news feed on social networks all day long. Reading books makes a person smarter, more literate and more knowledgeable than the rest. A well-read interlocutor easily maintains a conversation and has an excellent memory.
If what you need to read is understandable without words, then questions may arise with short reading. Most tend to think that this type of information absorption is inappropriate and poorly remembered. But the concept of hastily is not suitable for quick reading. This is an opportunity to learn the same information in a shorter period of time. Many, on duty, have to deal with a long study of documentation, speed reading will help out here too.
Why you need to be able to read quickly
An average person reads about 200 words per minute, but with peripheral vision training, this number can be increased to 600. The development of this ability is hampered by two main distractions:
- Reciting the content in your head.
- Concentrate on punctuation.
When you can ignore the distractions, you will begin to take in the whole line of text with your eyes. Having mastered these skills, you can triple the time spent on work and self-education.
Many famous personalities owned this skill, and he helped them in their creative activities. Maxim Gorky looked at and memorized a newspaper page in one minute, and American President John F. Kennedy developed the ability to read 1,000 words per minute and had time to read a whole pile of newspapers at breakfast. One of the most famous and educated people of his time was Franklin Roosevelt, who read a paragraph in just an instant. It is possible that this skill helped these people to reach such heights.
Life hack: How to learn to read quickly
Life hack from Oksana Chistovskaya, narrative game designer at PecPoc Games, game writer, member of the International Writers Guild.
As I work, I go through a lot of text: fiction, guides, articles about narrative design, and, in the end, tons of game texts. Therefore, the ability to read quickly plays an important role for me. The most important thing for this is to get rid of the habit of pronouncing the text in your head. We often do not notice, but when reading, we pronounce all the words to ourselves. This slows down the process considerably. Our brains actually process the information they read very quickly, and then just wait for other systems to finish their work. Therefore, we must try to ensure that only the eyes and the brain are focused on the text.
There are also different ways to practice speed reading. For example, read books by turning on autoscroll in the application. First set a low speed, then gradually increase. This method helped me once to quickly train speed reading. But it is best to use it after you get rid of the habit of pronouncing the text.
Speed reading basics
When fixing on the text, several types of vision work at once:
- foveal perceives details located in the center of visibility;
- peripheral is rather vague but covers a larger range.
The acceleration of recurrent eye movements when reading is called regression and develops memory. Exercises have been developed to improve peripheral vision, because the less the reader looks at the line, the higher the reading speed he demonstrates. Another plus will be a reduction in eye strain, which will remove excessive fatigue.
Suppression of external and internal stimuli. Isolate unnecessary sounds and noises around you and in your own head. There is also the concept of browsing, which means to quickly find important words and the meaning of the text. Develop parallel skills, everyone can do several things at the same time, also with reading. To increase motivation, you can arrange friendly competitions and a subsequent quiz about knowledge of the text.
Speed reading technique
Elena Aleksandrovna Ivanova, head of the network of children’s polyglot language centers, author of the Speed Reading program, will talk about a unique technique.
How to develop speed reading skills?
Parents should think about developing the skill of speed reading as soon as the child has learned to read, or he is already attending school, and there he has problems mastering the educational material. Before understanding how to help a child learn to read fluently, it is necessary to understand the term “speed reading” itself.
Reading is a rather complex mental process that involves memory, attention, imagination, and thinking. Coordinated work of many parts of the brain is required. However, when the child copes with this task, it will be much easier for him to solve many other educational and life issues.
First of all, the parent needs to understand what is the main reason for inattentive or slow reading. If your child is just learning to read, then pay attention to the following features and try to prevent their development:
- Parents taught reading incorrectly, i.e., for example, they taught the child the alphabet, not sounds (they taught me to remember that “l” is “el”, and “m” is “em”). Now it is difficult for the child to compose syllables and words.
- A child is diagnosed with dyslalia, an inability to recognize and understand speech sounds, or a general lack of phonemic hearing. In these cases, the speed reading teacher alone cannot cope; the help of narrow specialists is needed.
- The child’s articulatory apparatus is poorly developed. In the classroom, we do language and breathing exercises, which allow you to “talk” the child, open the lungs and speak and read freely.
- The student often returns to what they have already read, this is called eye regression when reading. There are special techniques that can eliminate this effect.
- The child does not see the whole word and invents endings.
- The child has a low level of concentration, perception and memory.
- Narrow field of view or small amount of operational vision.
- When parents force a child to read books only aloud, he develops the habit of recognizing words only after reading aloud.
With all these problems, special techniques and speed reading techniques help to cope. If the moment, as they say, is missed, then it’s not scary: at home, special workouts will help you.
Speed reading exercises
I will share a few recommendations for working with texts.
A common problem for children is going back to what they have already read. There are several methods of dealing with eye regression, I will give the simplest one.
Bookmark
The child reads the first line in the text, puts a bookmark or ruler on it, closing the read text. Continues to read, moving the bookmark around the page. It is impossible to go back to the read text. The habit of reading only ahead will develop automatically over time.
Techniques for suppressing articulation
Reading aloud, even lip murmuring, interferes with increasing reading speed. Only eyes should read. The following exercises will help to remove pronunciation:
Reading to music
Turn on the child first music without words, then accompanied by a song. Noise interferes with speaking.
Mumbler
Children should mutter or buzz or hum the tune while reading. This exercise is difficult, but it develops both hemispheres of the brain at once, since the child performs two actions at the same time.
Pencil
The lips do not obey and still mumble on the machine, then you need to clamp them with a pencil or a tube.
Drumroll
Any arbitrary rhythm can be tapped by the child himself or by an adult, or you can drum without any rhythm or play your favorite melody.
These training exercises are difficult to perform for preschoolers and elementary school students. Additional noises, tasks interfere with the perception of information, so it is necessary to regularly monitor the understanding of the read text.
Speed reading for children
Scientists have proven that if a child reads slowly, it is more difficult for him to learn, since our brain works much faster than our eyes, and when reading slowly, the child’s head does not have time to process incoming information.
Here are some arguments in favor of speed reading for children:
- it becomes easier for the student to work with educational materials;
- the child not only reads faster, but also understands the meaning of what he read faster, which means he copes with educational tasks faster;
- in parallel with the development of speed reading skills, memory, attention and thinking develop;
- the child develops patience, perseverance and the ability to concentrate;
- A student learns to weed out unimportant information and perceive useful information – an extremely important skill in the modern information space;
- The child expands his field of vision, learns to see not only the text as a whole, but also is more attentive to the reality around him. As they say, attentive people have more interesting lives!
Is there an effective technique for speed reading?
Parents should conduct a comprehensive diagnosis of the causes of slow reading and work to eliminate them.
For some child it will be enough to increase the angle of view, and he will read 3 times faster, another needs speech gymnastics, which helps to develop the articulatory apparatus and improve “pronunciation” abilities, the third will benefit from breathing exercises. Tasks for the development of memory, attention, thinking are also very important when teaching children to speed reading.
It is important that the classes are regular, and the exercises solve the problems of your child. Only then will the speed reading technique be truly effective.
Output
Summing up, we highlight the main advantages of speed reading:
- fast perception of new information;
- memory improvement;
- development of visual skills;
- highlight key information and discard unnecessary text.
