speed and flexibility Reading speed is a major problem in this type of teaching. Among a given
class of students, reading speed may vary enormously, resulting in boredom
for faster readers waiting for classroom activity to continue, and frustration
for the slowest, who are never allowed to read a text to the end.
Furthermore, we believe that one should attempt to increase the reading
speed of all our students. This requires the apparently contradictory action
of controlling reading time and doing so for each student individually. It is
clear, that for this purpose at least, the computer is the only medium which
offers such control.
In the context of reading, flexibility expresses the need for different
modes of reading, adapted to various types of text and goals in reading
them: for example, one reads an abstract in an academic journal one way,
and an article in Reader’s Digest in another.
This is to some extent related to reading speed control, as skim-reading of
certain texts can be ‘forced’. Highlighting a text and focussing on logical
connectors will also develop this sub-skill. This can be achieved using
printed matter and, more vividly, overhead projection, but the computer
allows the combination of visual display with time control, and can do this
individually for each student.