The Case for Slow Reading
To "taste" what we're reading, we have to slow down, says Thomas Newkirk in the EL article "The Case for Slow Reading."
In many schools, however, reading has become a "form of fast food to be consumed quickly." Kids race to finish reading comprehension tests, tick off books read or millions of minutes reading, and the link between speed and good reading becomes fixed. "To be quick is to be smart; to be slow is to be stupid."
The article explores what we miss when we define good reading as fast reading.
Inefficient as it may be, the author advocates that some reading deserves to be in-depth. Strategies for slowing down reading—like reading aloud, memorizing passages, annotating a page, and rethinking test time limits—make the act of reading something to savor, and reconnect students to the human voices at work in a text: the author's, subject's, and their own.
How do you slow down reading for your students?
