This study investigated the effects of a six-month course in speed reading in three areas of reading proficiency development: 1) general reading comprehension, 2) knowledge of high-frequency vocabulary, and 3) reading-rate and accuracy. The participants (N = 105) were Japanese students studying English as a foreign language in Grade 10 at a…

Fluent reading is essential for successful comprehension. One dimension of reading fluency is reading rate, or reading speed. Because of the importance of reading fluency, fluency development activities should be incorporated into classroom practice. One activity that meets the fluency development conditions proposed by Nation (2007) is speed…

Web skimming may be a kind of literacy but it's not the kind that matters most. In this article, the author contends that web skimming indicates a decline of literacy. The author discusses research conducted by Jakob Nielsen, a Web researcher, on how users skim web pages. He shows how the web is damaging the right way to read.

Is Skim reading effective? How do readers allocate their attention selectively? The authors report 3 experiments that use expository texts and allow readers only enough time to read half of each document. Experiment 1 found that, relative to reading half the text, skimming improved memory for important ideas from a text but did not improve memory…

Over the last 50 years, certain ideas have become dominant that make learning to read different than it once was than the ideas that children are neurologically "wired" to use language "competently" in certain ways. Noam Chomsky has promoted the idea that there are certain "syntactic structures" hard-wired in the human brain. That view, the author…

Eye fixation is a frequent problem that faces foreign language learners and hinders the flow of their reading comprehension. Although students are usually advised to read fast/skim to overcome this problem, eye fixation persists. The present study investigates the effect of using a paper-based program as compared to a computer-based software in…

Speed reading should emphasize flexibility in applying reading skills and should use methods that stress creative thinking. (CK)

This study aimed to investigate whether pedagogically guided web-based reading can improve skimming and scanning significantly (i.e., increased productive outcomes) and whether it can enhance student participation and motivation (i.e., increased affective outcomes). Forty-six students enrolled in two German 3 classes at the high school level were…

Speed reading does not permit the deliberation needed to savor and appreciate literary craftsmanship. (DD)

Some suggestions that will assist in increasing reading speed. (Author)

This article introduces a new computer conferencing metric called Scan Rate, which is a measure of students' and instructors' online reading speed. The term "scan" refers to the practice of either skimming through a message at an unusually rapid pace or reading a message partially and then stopping before the end is reached. It is…