How to teach a child to read quickly and understand what he reads

Why does a child need speed reading

Speed reading is an important skill, mastering which allows a child to succeed in school. You can teach this from about seven years old, more precisely, from the age when the baby can read words at a speed of at least 30 words per minute.

Starting from the fifth grade, the student has to process unusually large amounts of information. Most of the subjects, such as history, natural history, literature, and so on, require quick reading, memorization and further retelling of the information received. Therefore, this skill is simply necessary for every student who is going to engage in intellectual work in the future.

How to learn to read quickly

Any complex skill, which is also speed reading, consists of a number of smaller sub-skills. For a child to learn to read faster, he needs to master them.

Develop voluntary attention

An important component of the reading process is the child's ability to concentrate his attention for a long time. This sub-skill is practiced with simple exercises such as a maze. A child needs only to find a way out of it with the help of a glance.

How to teach a child to read quickly and understand what they read

Expand the field of view

A child can perceive and read several words at once, since the reading process is based on images.

For example, when a child reads the phrase “Masha ate porridge” one after another, the image of a girl first appears in the child's head. Then he imagines that she is eating, and then - that she is eating porridge. It takes a lot of time to consistently compose this image.

It's another matter if the child sees three words at the same time. The image of a girl eating porridge immediately appears in my head. It happens instantly and greatly speeds up the reading process.

In order for a child to be able to see and perceive 2-3 words at the same time, it is necessary to expand his field of vision. There is a simple exercise that allows you to do this. It is called "wedge-shaped tables". The child needs to concentrate on the central column and slowly go down with a gaze, while pronouncing the side numbers aloud. The goal is to go to the very bottom and see the numbers both to the right and to the left of the center column at the same time.

Reduce pronunciation

Pronunciation of the text greatly slows down the reading process and negatively affects comprehension and memorization. To prevent this, the child needs to tightly purse his lips and bite his tongue while reading. Thus, you can avoid articulation - the process of pronouncing the text while reading.

Remove recurrent eye movements

When reading, the child often returns to the already read part of the text, rereading entire paragraphs of the paragraph. Such a process, firstly, negatively affects reading comprehension, and secondly, it reduces the reading speed due to the fact that the child has to reread the same thing several times.

The solution to this problem is simple: the child needs to slide his finger along the line while reading. And if he does it quickly enough, then the reading speed will certainly increase, and without losing the quality of understanding.

Be able to highlight the main thing in the text

One of the most important skills is to highlight the main thing in the text. It is strengthened by numerous trainings. For example, you give your child a highlighter (marker), ask them to mark important points in the text and then describe it in just 10 words. The child will choose words very carefully in order to fit the whole meaning of the text into them.

If you help your child to master at least a few techniques, then positive results in the form of an increased reading speed, and, accordingly, an increased academic performance will not be long in coming. Success in teaching you and your children!