Speed Reading Competition

During Book Week, our primary students participated in a speed reading competition. They could test their reading skills and win some interesting prizes. The main objective was to read a given text as fast as possible and then answer a few questions about the text. Participants were divided into two groups according to the difficulty of the text. I would like to thank the all participants and congratulate the winners. It was great fun.

What is speed reading?

Speed reading is one of many techniques to improve the ability to read fast. This technique was popularized by American educator Evelyn Wood. After studying the habits of naturally fast readers, she developed a methodology that was taught in many seminars across the country. Evelyn Wood is also famous for the fact that her methods were taught to President John F. Kennedy, who was a great proponent of speed reading.

Three types of reading

Subvocalization: sounding out each word internally, as reading to yourself. This is the slowest type of reading.
Auditory reading: hearing out the read words. A faster process.
Visual reading: understanding the meaning of the word, rather than sounding or hearing. This is the fastest type of reading process.

Resources

‘Speedy History of Speed Reading’, Iris Reading, 7 May 2008, Accessed 4 April 2023, <https://irisreading.com/speedy-history-of-speed-reading/>

‘Speed Reading’, The University of Chicago, 30 December 2017, Accessed 4 April 2023, <https://web.archive.org/web/20180307083117/https://wellness.uchicago.edu/page/speed-reading/>