The Effects of a Speed Reading Course and Speed Transfer to Other Types of Texts

Abstract

Reading fluency plays an important part in academic achievement at colleges and universities. Speed reading courses, along with repeated reading and extensive reading, are popularly used methods to help students increase their reading speed. Several studies have shown the positive influence of a speed reading course in L2/FL on students’ reading speed but there has been little research on the effect of reading speed improvement on other types of reading outside the course. This research was carried out to determine if speed increases transfer to other types of texts that were not in the speed reading course. The results showed that the treatment groups outperformed the control groups both in the course and on other types of texts (p<.05). It was found that most of the participants increased their reading rate without a comprehension decrease. The study found a strong relationship between the amount of speed improvement in the course and the amount of speed improvement on other types of texts.