Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

‘Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.’

Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.’

SPEEDY GONZALES
SPEED-READING
On a basic level, reading is the process of decoding a series of symbols (letters, numbers and punctuation marks) in order to access their meaning. In a wider sense, reading opens up unlimited worlds to us, from taut psychological thrillers to histories of the world – it’s wonderful to lose yourself in a great story.
Reading is a fundamental skill that most of us learn in childhood, and, rather unsurprisingly, we get more efficient at it the more we practise it. Studies suggest that the average adult reads between 175 and 350 words per minute. However, it’s possible to develop skills to enable you to read even faster than this while still absorbing and understanding the words your eyes are scanning. Speed-reading is thus not only about reading quicker, but also reading better.
GETTING UP TO SPEED: MASTERING THE ART OF SPEED-READING
Here are some tips to help you improve your reading skills:
1. Find an environment conducive to reading – somewhere quiet and peaceful where you’ll be able to concentrate.
2. Read in chunks. When we’re first taught to read, we’re encouraged (quite rightly) to read word by word. However, more seasoned readers should be capable of reading blocks of words. If you really think about how you read naturally, you’ll likely discover that you already read a group of several words at a time, with y