Speed Reading - The Earliest Steps

Nobody actually knows when speed reading was first employed, but it could have been a very long while in the past. For hundreds of years, reading was the privilege of a minority of the most well-educated individuals 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 instruct the general populace to read. Moreover, during those centuries there were relatively few books to read compared with nowadays.

Books were also very expensive as they all had to be copied out by hand. Possibly the only fact that has not changed 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 giving up on books and becoming fixed in front of monitors or television screens. In such a world, parents must not fail to notice the importance of creating a zeal for reading in themselves and their children.

Reading is a habit that should be established whilst the child is relatively young, so what can you do to encourage this habit?

Well, there are several strategies you can make use of, although one of the best is to show the way by example. Read with your child each day, even if its only for 10-15 minutes. Permit your child to observe you reading.

By this I mean, do not only read in bed before you go to sleep, but instead of watching TV sometimes and read your children a bed-time story. Encourage them to read too. You could also:

Register your child for reading classes, if you honestly do not have much time or your child is a little slow at reading. There are many well-structured after-school reading classes that endeavour to make books more appealing to children.

They help children with pronunciation, sayings and phrases. These lessons can be entertaining with cartoon characters and pictures, particularly for young children,. They often use Illustrated books, rhymes, comical songs and short stories to enliven the imagination of younger children.

You will have to find out how to kindle your child's interest. If your child has a preferred character, pick a series of books that include this character.

Endeavor to encourage your children to read real books not comics. The language in comics frequently leaves a great deal to be desired with its careless English and street slang. Instead, go for series of books like Harry Potter or Tarzan.

You ought to build yourself a library of your own books. This might sound a little grandiose, but after all, a library is just a collection of books. Begin with a decent-looking bookshelf that you can easily build on.

A talent like reading cannot be learned in just one place, so you cannot afford to leave all the difficult work to the day-school or even the after school classes. You have to collect books that you think your child will like as well.

Use the Web as a source for learning about the modern reading games that will attract little children to the excellent and ancient art of reading,

Once your child is interested in reading for its own sake, you could buff up on speed reading. Speed reading is best suited for educational learning and ambient reading. It is extremely suited to cramming or studying for exams.

It is perfect for school and university. However, the first job, before you can think about speed reading, is to get your child reading regularly for fun in the first place.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on various subjects but is currently involved with Free Home Schools. If you would like to read more, please go over to our web site entitled How To Stay Home From School.