Is speed reading beneficial? The whole truth about speed reading. Disadvantages of speed reading. Myths speed reading. quickly reading a book

Learning to read quickly is a problem for every child, especially in the early grades. Therefore, parents decide to try speed reading, which increases the number of “swallowed” characters per minute. Is speed reading really necessary for children?

In the modern world, humanity is bombarded with a huge flow of information every day. Three thousand pages of scientific information are printed every minute. But our children don’t show that much interest in books. Mainly due to the fact that, spending a lot of time and effort, they receive very little information.

What is speed reading?

We want to prepare our offspring for the fact that during their school years a lot is built on the ability to work with a book independently. Moreover, after elementary school, the amount of “home reading” doubles. But reading abilities remain at the primary school level. So the child gives up reading because he simply gets tired of it.

Speed reading can come to your aid - the ability to quickly perceive texts, but it needs to be trained using special reading methods. Accordingly, your child will be able to read books 3-4 times faster. There are speed reading methods that allow you to achieve results of more than 1000 words per minute. Experts say that at such a speed, the quality of understanding the material suffers greatly.

Speed reading: pros and cons

Many mothers want to teach their offspring this method, because with a low reading speed, the child’s reading speed comes in principle. With the help of speed reading, they strive to support children's desire for knowledge and skills.

One of the mommies UAUA . info under nickname " Albertovna " writes: « We took speed reading classes before school.The technique is really effective. The child was already more or less reading. In addition, writing (in print), a little mathematics and, of course, speed reading itself were taught there.”

Everyone who came across this technique said that it made their life much easier. In particular, this applies to adults who urgently have to read 500-page treaties a night or scientific reports.

Experts are inclined to believe that children, by and large, do not really need speed reading. At an early age you need to be able to enjoy what you read, but with the use of this technique this is not always possible.

Mommy UAUA . info under the nickname “Three Tankers” shared her opinion on this topic: « Speed reading gives speed of reading, but at the same time the assimilation of the text decreases. I would not recommend speed reading at an early age. Throw away your money, and then you will struggle with another problem: you read a lot, but what you read, you forgot after 5 minutes. It won't be of any use at school."

The most optimal reading is at conversational speed: from 120 to 150 words per minute. It is at this speed that a better understanding of the text is achieved. Therefore, only when a student learns to recognize words in a text as a whole, only then will he be able to master faster levels of reading.

At the same time, reading speed has always been valued by teachers. And this was the case in our time, and most likely it will be the same during our children’s school years. Teachers even have their own theory on this matter, or even some kind of pattern.

“If we analyze the 5th grade, we can conclude that the excellent students were children who, at the end of primary education, had a reading speed in the range of 130-170 words per minute. On average approximately 150 words per minute, - speaks primary school teacher Tatiana Grekova. - Those who became good readers had a reading technique of 100 to 140 words per minute. On average this is 120 words per minute. C students had a reading speed of 80-90 words per minute - approximately, of course. This is the pattern".

Of course, you yourself must decide whether to teach your child to speed read. The main thing is not to start too early, so as not to completely discourage him from reading the book. In the meantime, advise him to read carefully, re-read some lines several times. Let him enjoy speech patterns, savoring every word. After all, reading a good book is not only necessary for school, but also very tasty.

Video tips: Psychologist Natalya Boytsova talks about the myths and reality of speed reading

The ability to read quickly (speed reading) is advertised in a certain environment of humanity that wants to receive a lot of information very quickly. It would seem - learn this business using training - and it’s in the bag. Now, having speed reading skills, you can become the owner of encyclopedic knowledge, and simply an intellectually developed person. All this will happen in a short period of time. But not everything is so simple...

A person’s reading abilities have certain limitations, and the reading process itself is the same for all people. It all happens something like this: you look at a word or a couple of words. It is called fixation and requires approximately 0.25 seconds. Then you move your eyes to the next word or group of words. It is called abruptly and takes on average 0.1 seconds. After a few repetitions of this, you pause to understand the phrase you just read. This takes approximately 0.3–0.5 seconds. And so on in a circle. Thus, in the process of normal reading, several types of necessary delays As a result, we find that the average reader can master about 200 words per minute.

Features of speed reading technique

The whole point of squealing is that it reduces the duration of delays and their number, due to which the overall reading speed increases.

Among the main speed reading techniques, there are usually four most common ones.

With the method fluent sliding a person evaluates areas of text and identifies important parts from them. Despite the fact that this approach is considered a speed reading method, you do not learn to read faster, but rather practice finding sections of text that you can skip over.
With the method eliminating regressions a person leads his eyes along the lines with a certain rhythm with the help of a pen (or without it), thereby eliminating the involuntary return and re-reading of phrases.
With the method expansion of peripheral vision a person covers a larger amount of text in one eye contact, reducing the number of gaze shifts. An additional benefit of this technique is that it reduces eye strain.
With the method quick visual sequence the entire text is split into individual words, which flash one after another at high speed in the middle of the screen of any electronic device. There is no eye movement at all.

Why speed reading doesn't provide the benefits you expect

It's all because of human capabilities. Anatomical and brain capabilities. The perception of information when reading depends on the anatomical capabilities of the eyes. So, visual acuity and level of concentration are noticeably reduced if you try to immediately cover a large swath of sign information. Letters and words simply begin to blur together when vision is too strained.

You can train yourself and see at least 1000 words in one minute, but the RAM of the human brain also has a limit: when scribbling, you simply will not assimilate, much less remember, the material you read well. Alas. And this is confirmed by scientific research. For example, this is stated by researchers from a group of cognitive psychologists from the United States led by Keith Rayner, one of the most respected scientists in the field of studying eye movements, visual perception and reading.

Should you use speed reading methods and when?

Despite the disadvantages of speed reading, it has positive aspects. It can be used when studying materials that do not require deep mental activity and careful memorization of the content of the text. For example, news from almost (newspaper or electronic) - you know the proposed material well and want to clarify only a few details.

Constant reading practice allows us to learn and remember new words - to increase our vocabulary. In turn, this reserve allows, without compromising reading comprehension, to quickly study the material, thereby increasing reading speed.

Do you practice speed reading? Can you refute (or confirm) the results of scientific research?

Many people have heard about speed reading courses, about speed reading training. If you believe the advertising, then thanks to speed reading you will no longer need to spend a lot of time reading the book you need or memorizing a dictionary in a foreign language; everything will happen in a matter of minutes. According to contemporaries, many outstanding personalities of one time or another: Leo Tolstoy, Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar read very quickly, i.e. had speed reading skills. Can we hope that after training we too will be able to have phenomenal skills and use them to our advantage? The Otebe.info website wants to talk about this in this article.

Phenomenon or skill?

Let's lift the veil a little and understand the system of teaching speed reading. During the first two weeks, you will learn to read not just one word, but several at once. To do this, you will have to practice defocusing your gaze for several hours a day. Then you will be taught to broaden your horizons and for the next two weeks you will read both horizontally and vertically. The consequence of this method is the ability to “eat” a piece of information from a book at once. By improving in this way in simple exercises with tables and diagrams, in about another month you will learn to read entire lines at the same time, and then, when you are already happy that everything is working out for you, a shock awaits you.

It turns out that this skill is actually not needed, since you will not use it. And now you will be taught the basics - the Grail of Quick Readers: read whole pages. The essence of the exercises is incredibly simple: to develop a reflexive perception of information without even reading it. Through long and hard training, some did develop this skill, but, as it turned out, these few turned out to be a little more than 1% of the total number of students. And the point is not at all that some were lazy, while others trained hard - everyone studied equally diligently. It’s just that the training system itself is adapted for people with a certain mentality, a more creative nature, and those who are more guided by logic in their lives are simply not able to understand the principles of working with the subconscious, since they have almost no rational basis.

Drawing conclusions, we can say that speed reading cannot be called reading, but rather near-mechanical processing of information, which is carried out more subconsciously than by conscious volitional efforts. This means that even after reading a book using this method, you will not remember anything from it, but the knowledge will be in your head and come to your aid in a state of stress. So let's get back to the topic and sort out all the pros and cons of speed reading.

Pros Pros of speed reading:

Phenomenal reading speed. Even those who did not complete the training course and did not master the photographic properties of memory increased their results in reading techniques several times.
“Pumping up” the mind. Improving your visual skills, coupled with the enormous amount of information you load your brain with, creates an effect similar to the “pump” experienced by bodybuilders. By pumping your mind to capacity, you develop its basic characteristics, such as memory, logical thinking, and so on.
Rich vocabulary. When you read, your consciousness seems to merge with the images of the characters and learn from them, trying on their vocabulary, behavior and gestures. You can use all this in real life.
Disadvantages of speed reading:

Boredom. Get ready for your life to become more boring. Having trained your brain to find and isolate important information on its own, you will no longer be able to read a book from cover to cover without understanding in the middle how it will all end. The same applies to movies and music, which will simply become uninteresting to you. Imagine for a moment that you suddenly stopped tasting food - now you don't care whether you're eating a gourmet salad or just drinking a protein shake, what matters is the result.
Constant moral fatigue. If you comprehend all the postulates of speed reading and are able to develop a photographic memory, then get used to the fact that your brain will be constantly hungry, and in a well-fed state it will be so full that you will simply not care about everything else.
Speed reading, like many other skills, is good in moderation. No one is saying that reading is bad, rather, on the contrary, reading reveals a highly spiritual and intelligent person, but turning something pleasant into a real mania means going to a useless extreme...

Materials published on "OUR PLANET" are an online review of Russian and foreign media on the topic of the site. All articles and videos are presented for review, analysis and discussion. The opinion of the site administration and your opinion may partially or completely disagree with the opinions of the authors of the publications. The administration is not responsible for the accuracy and content of materials added by users to the news feed.

Hello, my beloved readers! A week ago, we became acquainted with such an interesting technique as, through which you can literally study a huge amount of information in a matter of hours, learning only the most necessary things.

Today, in continuation of the topic, we will try to understand whether speed reading is necessary for children, whether such a technique is applicable for schoolchildren, and whether it can be practiced at home independently.

Lesson plan:

When to start learning to read soon?

From the previous lesson, we learned that speed reading is not at all like school speed reading. This is a special technique that allows you to quickly find the necessary data among the information array, having assimilated it in a short period of time.

I agree that many parents encounter bad children, especially in first and second grade. But I hasten to disappoint you, dear parents, that speed reading in this case is not a way out of the situation.

When introducing a child to reading as such, the main thing for him is to learn to read first correctly, and not quickly. And correctly - this means pronouncing all the letters, adding syllables into words, not omitting anything, and most importantly! - understanding what it’s about. Speed reading is not a help here; moreover, it can do harm.

The early mastered technique of speed reading will act as a stimulant for the student to hurry up and hurry up. As a result, we will get the absolutely opposite result when we look at a book and see a certain configuration from our fingers, create the appearance that we are reading, but in fact we are not reading at all, or we read so inattentively that it will take twice as long to re-read. Do we need this?

Moreover, the basis of speed reading is the ability to guess the “tail” from the first syllables, to learn from the first words what will follow next, but how, tell me, will an inexperienced, still poorly erudite schoolboy of seven or eight years old cope with this? As a result, there will be an incorrect interpretation of the text, a misunderstanding of the author’s thoughts, and errors in using the information received.

That is why many teachers recommend starting to teach speed reading to younger schoolchildren only when the child grows up and begins to set goals for himself to obtain information on his own, separating the “wheat from the chaff,” information garbage from valuable data.

It is then that the speed reading technique can provide him with an indispensable service. And this period of growing up, of course, is different for everyone, but usually occurs at the age of no earlier than 10-12 years.

The reason that you should not rush into learning to read quickly is also the physiological characteristic of children under 10 years of age to absorb only that information that is read at speed, as we say. And this is much slower than technology suggests.

Another argument against early speed reading in its full sense for younger schoolchildren among many teachers is that at school children do not read specialized literature, which must be studied quickly, like students the night before an exam.

Primary school students read beautiful works of fiction that deserve their close attention, involve enjoying the literary text and the book as a whole, and should enjoy this process. But speed reading can’t give you this, and you and I have already gone through this.

What speed reading is suitable for children?

It is a fact that speed reading is more suitable for teenagers and adults.

However, this does not mean at all that you cannot use exercises to develop reading speed for children, and already in the first grade you can start practicing, which will be a useful tool for the development of reading skills. Good and fast readers easily remember and retell large blocks of information, and for schoolchildren this is extremely important. The low speed of mastering data slows down the completion of educational tasks, and you and I know this firsthand.

The main condition for starting education is the child’s ability to read fluently. Among the frequently used techniques for younger students, most are based on play. They do not require much effort or stress and are quite simple to do at home:

you can train your angle of view when your gaze is concentrated in different directions; Schulte tablets are especially good for this; there are special programs that develop lateral and binocular vision, designed to train the perception of text by the retina,
to master “wrong reading” it is recommended to read words backwards, this will start the process of guessing the words,
an exercise to find a word in the text “who is faster” teaches you to use the text effectively,
helps to increase speed by reading quickly and concisely in tongue twisters,
There are techniques when, after a slow expressive reading of familiar material, for example, an unfamiliar text is immediately offered, which should be read at an accelerated pace.

How to prepare to increase your reading speed?

If you have set a goal to engage your child in mastering speed reading skills by a certain age, then these homemade preparations will help you:

increase not the duration of reading, but the frequency of training,
plan portioned five-minute reading sessions for each day with breaks, when the child reads a couple of lines and then takes a short rest; frames with subtitles, like early filmstrips, are good for this process, when the child reads the lines to the picture and then rests while studying it,
develop your working memory by writing visual dictations,
make it a habit to read before bed,
Organize timed reading competitions.

Today there are many teaching aids that allow you to learn speed reading at home, that is, there is no need to run somewhere for knowledge and skills. But for the lazy and those who do not have the patience to teach their child on their own, you can sign up for courses and trainings, where proprietary methods are often used.

There are even special schools for teaching speed reading and developing intelligence. And the atmosphere there is working, friendly, and conducive to fruitful and interesting learning. In general, all conditions have been created, if there is a desire.

If you want to work out at home, follow our news. Soon we will offer you a practical set of exercises that are the basis for teaching children speed reading techniques. Don't forget to subscribe to the blog news so you don't miss it)

See you again!

Pros and cons of speed reading

Phenomenon or skill?

Pros of speed reading:

Phenomenal reading speed. Even those who did not complete the training course and did not master the photographic properties of memory increased their results in reading techniques several times.
“Pumping up” the mind. Improving your visual skills, coupled with the enormous amount of information you load your brain with, creates an effect similar to the “pump” experienced by bodybuilders. By pumping your mind to capacity, you develop its basic characteristics, such as memory, logical thinking, and so on.
Rich vocabulary. When you read, your consciousness seems to merge with the images of the characters and learn from them, trying on their vocabulary, behavior and gestures. You can use all this in real life.

Disadvantages of speed reading:

Boredom. Get ready for your life to become more boring. Having trained your brain to find and isolate important information on its own, you will no longer be able to read a book from cover to cover without understanding in the middle how it will all end. The same applies to movies and music, which will simply become uninteresting to you. Imagine for a moment that you suddenly stopped tasting food - now you don't care whether you're eating a gourmet salad or just drinking a protein shake, what matters is the result.
Constant moral fatigue. If you comprehend all the postulates of speed reading and are able to develop a photographic memory, then get used to the fact that your brain will be constantly hungry, and in a well-fed state it will be so full that you will simply not care about everything else.

Speed reading, like many other skills, is good in moderation. No one is saying that reading is bad, rather, on the contrary, reading reveals a highly spiritual and intelligent person, but turning something pleasant into a real mania means going to a useless extreme...