Speed Reading - The First Steps

by Gail Jones

Nobody really knows when speed reading was first used, but it could have been a long while ago. For hundreds of years, reading was the privilege of a minority of the most well-educated people in the world, the vast preponderance of whom were monks and priests. This small, select group of men guarded their privilege and were loathe to teach the general public to read. Furthermore, all through those centuries there were relatively few books to read compared with today. Books were also very expensive as they all had to be copied out by hand. Conceivably, the only fact that has not altered is that the Bible was the most widespread book in existence and even now the Bible is the most popular book.

The world is rapidly becoming a place where individuals are slowly but surely turning their backs on books and becoming stuck in front of monitors or television screens. In such a world, parents should not fail to notice the importance of developing a zeal for reading in themselves and their children. Reading is a habit that should be established when the child is relatively young, so what can you do to engender this habit?

Well, there are several tactics you can make use of, although one of the best is to lead the way by example. Read with your child every day, even if its only for 10-15 minutes. Permit your child to see you reading. By this I mean, don't only read in bed before you go to sleep, but instead of watching television from time to time and read your children a bed-time story. Encourage them to read too.

You could also take all or some of the following steps.

Enroll your child for reading lessons, if you really don't have any time or your child is a little slow at reading. There are many well-structured after school reading classes that aim to make books more attractive to children. They help children with articulation, idioms and metaphors. These lessons can be pleasurable with cartoon characters and pictures created especially for young children,. They often use picture books, nursery rhymes, comical songs and short stories to fire up the imagination of younger children.

You will have to find out how to stimulate your child's interest. If your child has a favorite character, pick a series of books that feature this character. Attempt to encourage your children to read proper books not comics. The style in comics typically leaves a great deal to be desired with its careless English and street slang. As an alternative, go for series of books like 'Harry Potter' by J. K. Rawlings or 'Tarzan' by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

You should build yourself a library of your own books. This may sound a little impressive, but after all, a library is only a collection of books. Start with a good-looking bookshelf that you can easily expand. A skill like reading cannot be learned in only one place, so you cannot afford to leave all the difficult work to the day-school or even the after school curricula. You have to pick up books that you think your child will enjoy too. Make use of the Internet as a source for learning about the modern reading games that will attract little children to the superior and ancient art of reading,

Once you child is engrossed in reading for its own sake, you might learn about speed reading. Speed reading is best suited for informative learning and background reading. It's extremely suited to cramming or studying for examinations. It is perfect for school and university. Nevertheless, the first task, before you can think about speed reading, is to get your child reading in the first place.

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