How to teach children to read faster

Today you simply expect too much reading from your child and there is no way your child can help it. In schools, students are bombarded with textbooks to read, notes to make and take, massive information to remember and remember on tests. The stress level sometimes hits the roof and students and parents become unmotivated.

One of the keys to success is studying is teaching your child to read faster. Of course, there is a tendency to think that if I read faster, will I be able to understand what I am reading? As unlikely as it may sound, when you train to read faster, you can actually understand better, and not only will you begin to think more clearly.

Reading faster is not a soft skill. It’s more like a difficult skill and can be compared to the analogy of riding a bike. If you know how to ride a bike, think for a minute about when you first tried riding a bike. It was easy? Were you able to balance yourself the first time you sat on the bike? Probably not! However, you persevered and sooner or later your body just aligned itself and the next thing you know you can keep your balance and riding a bike becomes a piece of cake. The interesting thing about your ability to ride a bike is that once you have learned this skill, it will stay with you for the rest of your life. It is almost as if a new software program has been installed in your brain and you will never be able to delete this program.

Reading faster is very similar to the skill of riding a bicycle. You have to know the techniques necessary for your eyes to capture the words faster and convince your brain to process this information efficiently. It is easy? Well, it depends on your level of commitment and if you have the positive mental attitude to put the technique into practice until you reach a level of unconscious competence.

So, as a parent, what can you do to help your child read faster?

First, you need to understand that our eyes are motivated by movement. Try staring at an inanimate object for an extended period of time and see what happens. You will notice that your vision will start to blur and you may see a double. The thing about human eyes is that it is a direct extension of our brain. So everything you see with your eyes travels through the optic nerves, and eventually the information is processed in the brain. The good news here is that our human eyes have the ability to process an image in about a quarter of a second. In addition, the eye has a wide peripheral vision that allows it to capture information within an arc of 170 degrees. This means that instead of looking at one word for one word, you can actually see up to 4 words in one glance by exercising your peripheral vision. So if you want to read faster, what you need to do is try to get your eyes moving through the words in twice as long. The most effective way to do this is to use your fingers to slide the words as you read.

The second thing is that when you slide your fingers across the page try to synchronize your eyes with the movement of the finger and visualize the words you are reading. At first this may seem impossible and frustrating, but actually a lot happens in your brain when you do this. One of them is that your brain is now trying as hard as possible to process the information as quickly as possible.

This happens because, like any other creature in the animal kingdom, our body is configured to survive. Our senses are designed to keep us on high alert against predators and to capture or find food. As such, it would be impossible for your eyes to not be able to follow the movement of your fingers when you glide through what you are reading, as it is a survival instinct.

Once your brain gets used to the faster-than-normal movement of your fingers in the texts or articles you are reading, the brain will improve its ability to process information faster. In fact, as impossible as it may seem right now, when you start doing this, you will find that you can understand better by reading faster.

So as a parent, if you want to motivate your child to read faster, what you need to do is instill in him the habit of using his fingers to glide through whatever text he is reading. As this habit takes hold, the child will slowly but surely develop the habit of processing information faster and will learn to develop greater concentration when reading.

The earlier you start your child in this simple and rewarding habit, the longer you will reap the benefit that you and your child will reap. Not only that as your child becomes comfortable with this reading method, they will become more excited and want to experiment with different texts and articles that will improve their knowledge base.