FREE online courses on Improve Your Reading Speed - Factors that Reduce
Reading Rate
Some of the facts which reduce reading rate:
(a) limited
perceptual span i.e., word-by-word reading;
(b) slow
perceptual reaction time, i.e., slowness of recognition and response to the
material;
(c) vocalization,
including the need to vocalize in order to achieve comprehension;
(d) faulty eye
movements, including inaccuracy in placement of the page, in return sweep, in
rhythm and regularity of movement, etc.;
(e) regression,
both habitual and as associated with habits of concentration;
(f) faulty
habits of attention and concentration, beginning with simple inattention during
the reading act and faulty processes of retention;
(g) lack of
practice in reading, due simply to the fact that the person has read very little
and has limited reading interests so that very little reading is practiced in
the daily or weekly schedule;
(h) fear of
losing comprehension, causing the person to suppress his rate deliberately in
the firm belief that comprehension is improved if he spends more time on the
individual words;
(i)
habitual slow reading, in which the person cannot read faster because he has
always read slowly,
(j)
poor evaluation of which aspects are important and which are unimportant; and
(k) the effort to
remember everything rather than to remember selectively.
Since these conditions act also to reduce comprehension
increasing the reading rate through eliminating them is likely to result in
increased comprehension as well. This is an entirely different matter from
simply speeding up the rate of reading without reference to the conditions
responsible for the slow rate. In fact, simply speeding the rate especially
through forced acceleration, may actually result, and often does, in making the
real reading problem more severe. In addition, forced acceleration may even
destroy confidence in ability to read. The obvious solution, then is to increase
rate as a part of a total improvement of the whole reading process. This is a
function of special training programs in reading.
