You can help your teen reader faster for better understanding. Encourage your teen to:

• Read silently. Sometimes slow reading happens because the reader is whispering words to himself. If your teen breaks this habit, he may be able to read twice as fast.

• Read the material all the way through before going back to reread. Students who read slowly may lack confidence. They are so sure they missed something that they go back and reread a paragraph or page several times before going on to the next. This slows reading and does little to help understanding. Most of the time, the student will get what he needs from the first reading.

• Look at whole sentences or paragraphs, not single words. The eyes can take in much more than a word at a time. Yet many students still read word by word. Have your teen practice looking at several words at a time.

• Match reading speed to level of difficulty. Encourage your teen to do “light” reading, such as magazines and fiction, as quickly as he can. Tell him to save slower reading for textbooks and more difficult material. Doing “light” reading will give him practice in reading everything more quickly.

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