Fast reading technique for adults and children. Speed ​​reading and memory development: methods and exercises

Surely, you have often heard such an expression as the quick reading technique. But did you do anything to learn speed reading skills? And what is the normal reading speed and how to measure it? Let’s talk about what reading speed is and how to increase it. In addition, we will touch upon such issues as checking the reading technique, its types, and also consider the most effective exercises that will help significantly increase the speed of perception of textual information.

What is a reading technique?

Before we figure out how to read quickly, while remembering the material, we’ll talk about what reading speed is and how it is measured. We will also touch upon the speed reading technique, which allows you to process texts quite quickly and efficiently. We also note that speed reading and memory development are rather closely interconnected.

Reading speed - the ratio of read characters to the time in which they are read. This takes into account the understanding of the text, that is, how carefully the reader read it and remembered it.

In school practice, reading speed is measured in words, but experts recommend measuring it in characters, since the length of the words is different.

Speed ​​reading is a set of special techniques and techniques that can significantly increase the speed of reading, perception of the contents of the text. People who know the technique of speed reading, have a wide field of view, are able to filter the material read, to highlight the main in it. And most importantly, they can quickly find the necessary information in the text. That is why it is quite important to know what a quick reading technique is and how to master it in a short time.

Types of reading

Before talking about the reading technique and how to learn how to read quickly, let's say a few words about the types of reading. By the way, we note that most of them are fast reading methods.

Psycholinguists and people who are learning speed reading distinguish several types of familiarization with the text. So, we can distinguish in-depth, fast, panoramic, selective, as well as read-view and read-scan.

Let's briefly characterize each of these species and analyze their features.

• So, with in-depth reading, an analysis of all the details is made, the read is criticized, conclusions are formulated. This is usually how scientific literature is processed.
• Fast reading means not only a high speed of the process, but also an excellent understanding of the read. This may include familiarization with fiction.
• In panoramic reading, a technique for expanding peripheral vision is used. That is, a person reading in this way covers with his eyes a rather large section of text, which significantly affects speed. Thus, you can study almost any book.
• Selective reading only processes some parts of the text. These can be individual chapters, sections, paragraphs, or even sentences. This type of reading is used by students in preparation for exams.
• Reading-viewing is usually used by specialists and students in the selection of a particular literature. Looking through a book - an annotation, a preface, a table of contents, a person decides whether he needs it or not.
• When reading and scanning, a quick page scan is performed in order to search for individual definitions, dates, last names and names.

Next, we will talk about how to read quickly, and also find out which programs can help us with this. But first, let's talk a little about the speed of reading and its parameters.

The main components of reading speed

Before we look at what a quick reading technique is, let's talk about the components of the speed of this process. In order to check the reading speed, you first need to know about them.

So, the formula used to calculate read speed is as follows:

• V = Q x K: T.

Let's now decipher each of these conventions.

• 
  So, V is the reading speed, which is measured in signs per minute.
• The letter Q indicates the total number of characters read or characters in the text, depending on how you measure the reading speed. If you measure exactly one minute, two, three for reading the text, then you only consider the number of characters read for the specified period. If you read the entire text, noting the time for which you got acquainted with it, then you should calculate the number of characters in the entire text.
• T denotes the time taken to read the text. As already noted, it can be either fixed or obtained as a result of full text processing.
• And the last component, without which it is quite problematic to calculate the reading speed, is K, the coefficient of understanding. Here we note that it is usually used in programs to check the desired value. If you are self-checking your reading at home, you can skip it. However, the results will not be entirely accurate.

Reading speed guidelines

Before we talk about how to read quickly, let's talk about what standards exist in this regard. Based on this data, you can determine whether you need to develop this skill or whether your performance is quite high.

There are several reading speeds. It is measured in signs, since such a parameter is more objective than such measurements in words.

At the same time, a speed of 900 characters per minute is considered very slow. Slow equates to 1200 characters per minute. A person reading 1,500 characters per minute reads at medium speed. 1800 characters are considered above average. Fast reading implies a speed of 3000 characters, very fast - 5000, and people who master a minute above 10 000 characters are considered to have mastered the ultra-fast reading speed.

Check read speed

Before you talk about exercises that can help you significantly improve your reading speed, you should check it out. To do this, you can either use special programs or check it yourself, although this may not be entirely accurate data. If you decide to use the second option, then you will definitely need the help of someone from your family or friends, a text, a stopwatch.

We start by picking up an unfamiliar text, then asking for time in which you will read it. We begin to read. At the end you should be asked a couple of questions on the text. If you answered them, that’s very good. If not, it’s worse. By the way, note that speed reading and memory development are two inextricable things. If you read rather quickly and do not remember what you read, then there can be no talk of any speed reading.

Next, we consider the number of characters read in the text (this can be done using the Word program (Statistics) by highlighting the desired segment). Then we use the above formulas and calculate our reading speed. Here we note that the coefficient of understanding should not be considered.

Thus, you can determine for yourself whether you should increase the speed of reading or not.

Why increase reading speed

The main reason for developing speed reading skills is to increase the perception of information. We are constantly surrounded by a variety of messages, and it is quite important that we have time to perceive and remember them in time. And if the perception of audio and visual information is quite fast and it is almost impossible to develop this skill, then the perception of text messages is quite slow and depends on our reading speed. That is why speed reading skills should be developed, and this should be done not only by adults, but also by children. And that is why speed reading for children is a rather necessary skill.

Moreover, this process develops memory and attention. It is reliably known that the more a person reads, the more literate and developed he is. And in order to read a lot, you need to be able to read quickly.

We also note that people always strive to master special skills that are not inherent in everyone. So, speed reading also applies to them. Having mastered it, you can tell your friends and acquaintances with a clear conscience.

Reasons for Slow Reading

• 
  First of all, the speed of reading largely depends on the vocabulary of a person. The smaller it is, the harder it is to master the text, because you have to understand the essence of each new word.
• Another reason we are slowly reading is inattention. Surely, you have repeatedly caught yourself reading how to read the same page several times.
• Speaking lips read text. Few people know, but when reading this or that text, we produce hardly noticeable articulatory movements with our lips. This significantly slows down the reading speed.
• Another reason for slow reading is the habit of returning to an already read word or phrase.

These and many other things significantly reduce the ability to quickly learn speed reading. For children and adults, there are special exercises that help solve these problems.

Reading Techniques

If you want to master any method of quick reading, then you definitely need to know about a variety of techniques and methods that will help you significantly improve the perception of information.

In principle, each psycholinguist and specialist in this field develops his own method of teaching speed reading, focusing on a particular set of exercises.

The most famous of them is the quick reading technique of Oleg Andreev, Andrey Spodin.

All of them are based on the same principles - to expand the field and angle of a person’s vision, to teach him to avoid regressions, articulation movements when reading, to develop memory and thinking, the ability to critically perceive and remember the text.

It doesn’t matter whose method you choose, the main thing is to make it easy and interesting for you to do it.

Below we offer you exercises that underlie almost every speed reading course.

Reading Speed ​​Exercises

So, if we learn to read quickly, then we need to perform some exercises that will help develop memory, attention and reading comprehension.

If you want to develop your speed reading skills, we recommend that you work on this daily. To do this, you need to allocate at least an hour of free time for classes and perform simple exercises, which we will tell you about now.

• When reading text, cover each line you read with a blank sheet of paper. Instead of a sheet of paper, you can use your hand. The main thing is not to go back and not open the lines you have already read.
• Work with the Schulte table, gradually expanding the angle of view. By the way, the fast reading technique also implies a wide angle of view.
• When reading, be sure to keep your index finger on your lips - this will help prevent articulation, that is, speaking the read text with your lips.
• Do not be distracted by extraneous sounds, try to read in silence and maximize your focus on the text.
• After reading, retell to yourself what you read, check whether you have remembered everything or if something slipped away from you.

Install special programs that help you quickly read texts. So you can change the pace of reading, gradually get used to it. Below we will offer you several such programs and talk a little about what quick reading technique for children exists.

Programs for developing speed reading skills

We figured out what reading is, its speed, remembered some fairly simple exercises that will help us improve our performance. Let’s now look at the programs for quick reading. Here are three of the most famous and most used.

• Spritz helps you read texts quickly. You enter the piece you need into the field and set the speed with which the program reads it. It is very good in order to check not only the speed of your reading, but also to master the material in record time.
• The second program is Psy games. This is a whole complex of various exercises that will help expand the field of vision, improve memory and attention, reaction.
• We also note another complex for improving reading skills - Speed ​​reading software. With it, you can also significantly increase the reading speed.

We teach children speed reading

The last thing worth mentioning is teaching children speed reading. As we already said, this skill will be quite useful both for the development of memory, attention of your son or daughter, and for further studies at school or university.

Some tips for those who want to learn how to teach your child fast reading. In order to teach children to read quickly, you must first show them that they can do it. To do this, you can conduct the following experiment. Allow reading the text, while limiting the reading time to one minute. Then count the number of words in the read section of the text and ask the child to read it again. At the same time, time again. The second time the text will be read faster, which means you can prove to the child that the more he reads, the greater the speed of reading.

Be sure to ask the child after reading what exactly he learned from the text. This will help to teach to read not only quickly, but also attentively.

Note that any quick reading technique for children will be interesting only if you try to interest the child, engage with him in a playful way, without forcing him to do what he does not want.

conclusions

So, we have figured out what is fast reading technique and how important it is to master it. We found out what types of reading exist, what prevents us from reading quickly and how to overcome these obstacles. We also talked about how to teach a child to read and develop his skills.

We hope our article was helpful.