On The Speed Reading Training To Improve Senior High School Students' English Reading Abilities

Nowadays, it is demanded that speed reading abilities should be paid more attention to in English teaching. It is time's call. For nearly four decades, in the Soviet Union, the United States, Japan, Britain, France, and Germany, the scientists have already summed up a number of scientific methods for speed reading trainings. They have already formed a whole series of scientific training methods and the standards of different levels for a variety of schools and people, such as adults, college students, senior high school students, junior high students and even primary school students. The traditional English teaching methods in China emphasized more on intensive reading. They did not pay enough attention to the techniques of scanning and skimming, so that the reading speed and comprehension rate of the English learners are relatively low. "The speed reading", as a fast and efficient way to capture the useful information from the text of the reading materials, is not only about the reading speed, but also about tons of other abilities which are needed to be trained, such as the careful observation, accurate memory, quick judgments, and so on. It is an important means of intellectual development. Thus, English learners should receive the necessary speed reading training. For senior high school students, the neglect of speed reading training will seriously affect their English scores, and will also affect the training of their abilities and qualities. Based on the above considerations, in September 1st, 2010, I picked out two classes of Dawa No.3 Senior High School to do the speed reading training experiments in Panjin City,Liaoning Province. After certain period of learning, they should have the ability of using different speeds to read different reading materials and achieve different goals, so that they can expand the reading fields effectively and promote their intellectual development.Before and during the training courses, teachers should pay attention to arouse the students'anticipation and motivate them, so that they can be very active in the training of way of thinking and reading. Because reading is actually ways of thinking, the key of improving the reading speed and skills is way of thinking. In my opinion, the fast reading training is mostly based on the psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics. Using eye movement theory, schema theory and figure and ground theory as the theoretical basis of my thesis, I managed to put the fast reading learning strategies into the practical teaching, so as to improve the students'reading speed and motivation. During the class, teachers should be dedicated to introduce the importance of this training and the circumstances and methods of training in and abroad to the students. In the training, I mainly used the "timing method"to measure the reading speed of the students. First things first, I checked the normal reading speed and comprehension level of the students. Then, I used several methods to train the students during the training courses, such as improving the students'concentration and increasing their comprehension, gaining control of the students'eye movements to increase their reading speed and comprehension, developing pre-reading ability, developing advanced skimming and scanning skills, using mind-mapping to think and taking notes, using key information and localization to increase speed and comprehension, using paragraph structure to increase speed and comprehension and so on. In the end of each training course, I gave the students tests to check how they perform during the exams after the training strategy lecture. When tested, they were demanded not to look back the content of the materials. They were strictly asked to give each other marks by exchanging each other's paper, according to the standard answers. After that, they let the reading speed multiply by comprehension rate, which is the fast reading effective rate. These records were made by the students themselves. Its aim is to enable the students to fully understand their own progress, so the teachers could analyze the progress of the class regularly. Those who conduct themselves well were promptly commended and encouraged to make more progress. It also helps the students, who were not good at reading, to find ways to overcome the difficulties and encourage them to stick to it. Apart from the training in the class, the students were arranged certain amount of homework appropriately. The teacher also made good use of the ability activity class to guide the students to pick out and collect the valuable information from the whole dynamic process of fast reading training.From the results of the tests and the class performance of the students, we can conclude that their abilities of capturing information, comprehension and judgment have improved greatly during the training. The teachers from all the subjects reflected that the previewing speed of the students in Class Eighteen was significantly increased. During the class, when they were asked by the teachers, most of them could answer the questions correctly. The teachers were surprised and amazed. These experiments show that it is feasible to apply the fast reading training in Senior One students'English reading class. Through certain speed reading trainings, to cultivate the students to become speed reading experts, to improve the reading ability and to meet the needs of the information age, are totally possible and necessary.