Adult Reading Skills Improvement

Watch a group of young children who are just beginning to read and you’ll notice one thing about almost all of them.  Even if they have been instructed to silently read, most of the children will be mouthing the words they are reading.  Their lips will move to pronounce the words, even though they are not speaking them aloud.  The reason they do this is because as children begin to learn to read, they vocalize the sounds of the individual letters and then later on, the sounds of the words. 

Although this process is helpful to the children as they are introduced to the concept of reading, it’s also significantly reducing their reading speed. 

If you’ve ever watched a television show that featured speed readers or if you’ve ever known someone who could speed read, you might have noticed that their lips don’t move.  That’s not coincidence, it’s actually very significant.

When a person reads out loud or they mouth the words as they read, it takes them longer to read than someone who simply looks at the word and absorbs it.  This is one of the important steps in reading faster – learning to not vocalize the words either aloud or silently. But for an adult reading skills improvement depends on learning to read silently.

It’s difficult though for a person who has always read in this manner to change.  Even if they understand that, the benefit of not reading aloud is that they will dramatically change their reading speed.  It’s a habit and it’s one that becomes natural over time.  It can be changed though.

One thing that a person can do to change this habit and to begin on the road to speed reading is to learn not to move their mouths as they read.  If you are a parent with a youngster, just learning to read and you hear them reading out loud, you might suggest that they try and read to themselves.  If they do and you see their lips silently moving to the words, encourage them to try and refrain from that.  You can do that by giving them something to chew on, perhaps a stick of gum or a chewy candy.  This will preoccupy their mouth enough that eventually the inclination to silently say the words will disappear. 

Although adults are more conscious of this behavior, many still do it.  You can try those same ideas, chewing gum or a candy idea. Another idea that works well for adult is to place your hand over your mouth while you read. This stops the behavior automatically.  The benefit of this method is that you become fully aware of your mouth moving along with the written words. You can stop it as it is happening. This will ultimately result in stopping the practice. In addition, will help you read faster.

With a little work the desire to mouth words as you read them can be stopped. When it is stopped, the rate at which you read will already be climbing.  Speed reading is a skill that virtually everyone can learn; it’s just a matter of dropping old behaviors, such as silently mouthing words, and instead adapting new behaviors.  Once the habit is broken, you’ll quickly see improvement in your reading speed. That will greatly improve reading levels - adult or child