How to Become a Fast Reader?
It`s a common knowledge that reading is not only the careful recognition and understanding of each word on the page. A good reader is able to reconstruct the exact writer`s message to analyze and to enjoy it. Reading is an essential way of learning any foreign language. Fluent and quick reading can also become a fun, because a person can absorb a lot of material in a short amount of time. Various approaches, methods, trends connected with developing reading skills have been studied by many scientists. All these scientific works have had the main aim – to change habits of slow reading. Foreign language teachers have the opportunity to help students develop their reading skills and teach them different methods of improving their reading abilities.
How to teach students to read as quickly as possible? A lot of different abilities influence speed of reading and understanding of the text. The ability to understand the text and guess the meaning of new words on the basis of their context, surroundings, their grammatical function and morphological structure is considered to be the most important for quick and fluent reading. No doubt that successful reading depends on the ability to predict what comes next. Is it possible to develop this ability? The answer is definitely “yes”. There are some principal strategies that may help. First of all you should keep in mind that reading takes effort, quick and fluent reading takes even more. That`s why you shouldn`t read in the same way that you watch TV. I mean in an ineffective, passive way. Successful reading should be active and attentive. It`s very good to read in thought groups and phrases, but not in single words, because it`s easier to pull the meaning from groups of words rather than from individual words. If you want to read quickly you should learn to read between the lines and work on the meaning of the text at different levels for understanding information and critically evaluating the idea. It`s also important to stop talking for yourself while reading, because talking will slow you down.
The effective use of dictionaries. A lack of vocabulary prevents students from being fast readers in foreign languages. They interrupt their reading to look up new words in a dictionary. Certainly, it`s necessary to find out the meaning of an unknown word. But the problem is that the students do it too often and it makes reading less effective and very slow. As a result of constant referring to a dictionary, like many useful tools, a dictionary can become dangerous. It would be incorrect to ban the use of dictionaries, that`s why a good foreign language teacher is to make his students realize that they can cope without dictionaries while reading and that it`s wasteful to look up every new word. So, students must learn to use a dictionary effectively and with discretion. A good foreign language teacher realizes that his task is to make his students advanced and confident readers.