While the tools and resources that the 7 Speed Reading system provides are perfectly suited for helping people of any age achieve the reading speed they’re looking for, we recognize that there are other resources out there to take advantage of which also give excellent advice, tips, and training to help people become speed readers. Children sometimes need additional help and practice, especially during the vacation breaks when they’re not part of their regular English classes. What’s more, during vacation breaks families are often traveling, and a book will be easier to carry along, especially on long car trips. If you’re going on vacation with your children, but still want them to focus on improving their reading speed, then we recommend looking for the four-part series titled “Reading for Speed and Fluency.” This set of books works well with the techniques used in 7 Speed Reading, and will allow children to continue working on improvement when they’re away from the computer.
Fast and fluent reading starts with a good knowledge of vocabulary, and these books provide a good range of vocabulary that is appropriate for children up to their mid-teens. The books allow both for vocabulary learning and for review. What’s more, they use the vocabulary in quizzes, questions, and content review so that children can practice using the vocabulary as well as reading it. Younger children will be able to improve their vocabulary easily, and older children can focus on the other aspect of speed reading covered by this series: comprehension.
Speed reading works when comprehension of the words read matches the rate at which words are read. Without the ability to absorb and process text, speed reading is just moving your eyes across the lines of text. By providing well-formatted and clean text passages, and following them with questions about the content and meaning of the text, children are able to practice identifying important information in a passage and remembering it after they’re done reading. This question-and-answer format is useful if parents are working with children as well, since it’s already set up in a mini-quiz format.
Finally, the way each chapter is arranged is very similar to the format of reading comprehension tests that are part of the SAT and PSAT, which makes this series a good way for older children to practice for those exams. The more times they are exposed to this style of test, the more comfortable they’ll be with it, and it will be easier and less stressful for them the day of the test.
Reading for Speed and Fluency 1 (Paul Nation)
Reading for Speed and Fluency 2 (Paul Nation)
Reading for Speed and Fluency 3 (Paul Nation, Casey Malarcher)
Reading for Speed and Fluency 4 (Casey Malarcher, Paul Nation)
