Speed reading is such a useful skill to have when you start college. It may be, in fact, the number one choice out of all the college readiness skills that you’ll need in order to be successful. Whether you go to a two-year, four-year, or technical college, the fact is that you’ll have to do a whole lot of reading in order to make your way. In fact, it is the sheer quantity of reading and the number of words that are required for you to read each week is the number one thing that separates college from other schools.

College Readiness Skills – Speed Reading

Reading in college is one of the most tedious exercises that you’ll be expected to do. In order to complete your assignments on time, you often need to read entire novels in a single week, and sometimes a few chapters of a textbook in addition to that. Not only that, but you’ve also got to write essays, summaries, and probably spend an awful lot of time working math problems or doing lab work for a science class. The time commitment is enormous, and without the excellent college readiness skill of speed reading, you’ll be completely out of time for doing all of the other traditional college activities. Learning this as one of your college readiness skills is a very important first step towards a happy and successful college life.

College Readiness Skills – Time Management

The second of the important college readiness skills is time management, which goes hand in hand with speed reading. You need to remember to devote time to studying for and working on all of your different classes, and then of course you need to actually go to all of those classes, on time if possible. Add to that your social commitments, and you have a pretty packed schedule. Learning to use Microsoft Outlook or some other calendar program on your cell phone might seem like overkill, but that’s only what you’ll think before you start college and see these commitments piling up. Planning and time management is one of the key college readiness skills.

College Readiness Skills – The little things

Then there’s the little things in life that make all the difference. When I talk about these, I’m talking about those college readiness skills which don’t have a wide variety of uses, but are still key. The ability to cook and know how to do laundry, for instance, or the ability to touch type. The ability to diagnose a computer problem, or to know which medications you need to pick up from the drug store to clear up allergy symptoms. All of these little things can make a big difference in your life when you’re away from home for the first time.

College readiness skills are something that you can learn anytime, not just right before you leave. You might even not have them when you actually do leave for college, but that’s OK. Learn by doing. Immerse yourself in good habits, and you’ll pick them up faster than you think.

Learn to speed read? Most people admit that this is definitely a skill that they want (and sometimes need), but so few people even attempt to learn. Unfortunately for them, it’s so easy to learn to speed read. You can literally learn to speed read in an hour or two, and if you practice it for longer than that, then you’ll have that skill for life.

Learn to Speed Read With These Two Tricks

To learn to speed read effectively, you only need to know two things: metaguiding and subvocalization.

Metaguiding is the first speed reading technique which is often taught to people who want to learn to speed read, but don’t have a lot of time for practice. Metaguiding is basically just a fancy word for guiding your eyes across the page faster by using your finger. This helps you learn to speed read simply by making your eyes hurry across the page, increasing your reading speed physically rather than mentally. You’d be surprised at your ability to still be able to read all of the words on the page if you move your finger at an appropriate pace, not too quickly, not too slowly.

Using metaguiding is the first step in learning to speed read. It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Well, the second part of how to learn to speed read, subvocalization, or rather eliminating subvocalization, is highly important as well.

Subvocalization is a process that we all learn when we first learn the alphabet and words, and it is an elementary skill that has no place in our ability to read after we initially learn the techniques of putting letters together into words. Subvocalization is simply reading to yourself in your mind. You use your inner voice to tell you what the writing says. This is an extra step that really complicates the reading process. The simple fact is that in America, the average person talks at a rate of 110 words per minute or so, which is about the same rate that you hear words while subvocalizing. One hundred ten words per minute is simply not an acceptable reading speed when a slow reader is often considered to read at about two hundred words per minute.

To learn to speed read the fastest way, you need to work to eliminate subvocalization. There is no reason why you should be doing this as an adult. To get rid of subvocalization, try saying the alphabet while you read, or chewing gum.

If you want to learn to speed read, try these two techniques.

There are lots of resources out there for online reading for kids, you just need to know where to look. Our website is a prime area to check out first. Our free online speed reading test can be easily completed by anyone ages ten and up. Students younger than ten might find the reading a little challenging, but many of them can try it as well. Results will vary strongly based on your student’s ability to read, and their vocabulary.

However, you should still try it to get an idea of how strong of a reader your kids are. Online reading for kids come in all varieties and forms, and knowing how strong of readers they are can really help you pick and choose from the most appropriate websites to use.

One of the best online reading for kids sites out there is CYOA, the Choose Your Own Adventure website. On this website, children read a description of a character and some events surrounding them, and then when a character reaches a decision point (usually every 300 to 500 words), your kid makes it for them. Eventualities are set up for either path. These were a favorite of mine growing up, and I think I read every single one that our library had from 3rd through 5th grade, and now having them set up as online reading for kids, it’s easier than ever to use them.

Online reading for kids continues with a website called Starfall which is a phonics website. While I’m not so keen on phonics, this site is pretty good for beginning readers, since it allows them to practice making words and sounds, and it is targeted for very young kids.

One question that many educators and parents are asking is simply, what are phonics? Perhaps even more critically, what are phonics good for?

The simple fact of the matter is that phonics are what determines how the letters in our words sound. What phonics is is the study of how to pronounce words we don’t recognize on sight. For instance, whenever we see the ‘ph’ in a word, we know that it sounds like an ‘f’. We have things like silent ‘e’ and silent ‘h’ and silent ‘g’ which also affect how we pronounce words.

But why study phonics? What are phonics good for?

The study of phonics in elementary school is highly useful for some students, and completely useless for others. Phonics is an excellent tool for visual and auditory learners who need to see and hear in order to understand words. For kinesthetic learners, phonics is often a highly confusing subject, and one that they not only struggle with understanding, but don’t receive a whole lot of benefit out of in the first place since they are often strong readers.

In an ideal world, it would be easy to say that those who struggle with reading should be given phonics lessons, and the stronger students be given time to read silently, but that often looks very unfair to students, and is not something that administrators will likely approve.

However, if you take the study of phonics seriously, you can learn a good deal from the subject of phonics if it approached properly.

What are Phonics Principles Worth Knowing?

The first reason to study phonics is always to learn where words break apart for syllables. The more that this subject is covered, the better. Syllables are usually going to be where word parts divide, and where root words are exposed. Learning about root words is an essential skill for understanding the long and complex vocabularies of the sciences and should be approached as soon as possible.

Once the root words are established into a curriculum, phonics will also help with teaching proper spelling techniques to the few auditory learners you encounter. What are phonics but a backwards way of learning how to spell, in this case “sounding out” a word.

All kinds of people can make good use of speed reading techniques and speed reading skills. Educators, whether they are tutors, teachers, or administrators, are foremost among them. They might not use their skills for the same purposes as a businessman might, and in fact, that is what makes them so important. Educators are responsible for helping our children grow into productive members of society, and if there’s one thing that all education experts agree on, it is that our nation’s children are getting worse and worse at reading.

So how can teachers and educators make use of speed reading skills?

There are two really good ways to utilize speed reading in a classroom setting. The first method will be very beneficial to grade school teachers who are making use of literature circles in their classes, while the second method is much more appropriate for teaching struggling readers one-on-one.

Speed Reading Skills for Whole-Class Activities

Learning how to read faster allows a teacher to increase the volume of potential novels and pleasure reading books that students can read in their classes. In fact, instead of having some required reading, teachers should be able to open up their reading curriculum to three or four different choices at any one time, allowing students to make the best possible choices in regards to what they would enjoy reading.

The choice factor is allowable now because the teacher will be better able to keep up with knowing something about each book that students are reading, especially since kids’ books are much easier to read than the adult books that they are normally reading. Thus, teachers can still engage each group in meaningful conversations about what the student is reading.

In this case, the speed reading skills in use are more by the teacher. The number of options that are gained here are great for encouraging more reading by students, and really helps to show the students that their teachers love reading as well.

Speed Reading Skills for Struggling Students

Many people are surprised when I tell them that my number one strategy for teaching students who struggle with reading and reading comprehension is to teach them to speed read. If they cannot handle reading at a normal speed, then how are they expected to read even faster and still pick up the materials?

The human brain is a remarkable tool. If it is under-stimulated, then it has a tendency to get bored, and attention towards the things that you’re doing, regardless of how important they may be to our daily living, sometimes get ignored. Reading, especially for bad readers, is a very tedious task, and regardless of how interesting the material is. However, by teaching them speed reading skills, which include a large number of reading comprehension and word recognition skills, they will immediately have more success with engaging their brain.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ensuring that speed reading skills are taught to, and by, educators around the world is a very important item. Doing this will help their students, and it will help themselves as well.

One of the keys to nurturing successful, strong readers is to start them off early. Thus, while it used to be that in Kindergarten, students would be simply learning the alphabet and using it to formulate basic words, our demands on students have grown to require reading comprehension for kindergarten into the classroom.

In fact, because reading comprehension is stressed so heavily in older children, it is nearly impossible to avoid these more advanced aspects of reading in younger grades. So while it may seem strange to many teachers, teaching reading comprehension for kindergarten is starting to become a requirement.

Unfortunately, most teachers are somewhat in the dark as far as what they are supposed to do to increase the reading abilities of students who are so inexperienced with reading in general. Despite this, many of the most common activities that older children do for reading comprehension can be used in a the same way for younger children.

Age-Appropriate Strategies for Reading Comprehension for Kindergarten

Generally, with the four- to five-year-olds you’d find in a typical kindergarten classroom, you’re going to need to give them the inference that an older student could have drawn from a text. Thus, if you read a story about a boy who got lost in the woods, you would start with questions like “the boy is feeling scared. Does anyone know why?” and you could expect a reasonably decent answer. Questions like “How does the boy feel?” will probably not be all that effective.

My first tip for teaching reading comprehension for kindergarten is the same as my most general tip for teaching at any grade level, namely, that you need to require them to use different words than the ones the text describes when you cite your answer. Therefore, if the book says that the boy “went on a walk in the woods,” you might ask your students to try to say the same thing a different way. From time to time, I lower my expectations for kindergarteners on this simply because many of them simply don’t have the vocabulary to describe a situation any other way, but for older students, it can be a big benefit to their vocabulary and their writing skill later on to get used to paraphrasing from a very early age.

Second, recognize that for children who are only four or five, worksheets are probably not going to work out. You’ll want to ask the majority of your questions in the format of a dialog between you and your students, since this will give them the ability to display their full knowledge of a subject.

Third, when focusing on reading comprehension for kindergarten, don’t overdo it. While you may be required to include some elements of improving reading comprehension in your lessons, many of your children will not have the critical thinking ability necessary to handle those kind of questions. Ask for specific information from the story, and only ask broad questions that are specifically cited in a line of the text. Also, don’t be afraid to re-read large portions of the text, or even the entire thing if you find that your class is not following along well.

Reading Comprehension for Kindergarten – Conclusion

Teaching reading comprehension for kindergarten is far from easy, but it can be done. Use these tips, and try out a wide variety of strategies to increase your students thinking abilities throughout the year. Teaching this difficult skill at such a young age is still fairly new to the world of education, so the best practices are still a little fuzzy and unknown.

Getting used school books is one of the most important parts of any college student’s semester. Often, being the first in line for buying these extremely limited, and often half-priced books is one of the keys to a happy school year. You can literally save hundreds of dollars buying used school books over the brand new, and that often means that you have more pizza and beer money to survive the rest of the semester with.

The Financial Implications of Used School Books

In fact, getting used school books is sometimes a financial necessity rather than a option. With over $500 in books usually required in most American Universities, the costs of not getting in on these sales items can be severe. They may require you to take extra student loans, which add up significantly over time, and can impact your health and wellness as you go through the semester.

One of my best friends found himself out of money with a significant portion of the semester left to go, and his parents were unable to contribute more to his living funds. What he ended up doing was living off of ramen noodles and saltine crackers, a common college student fix. By the time finals rolled around, he was so physically weak from his diet that he could barely walk to class. During the week of finals, he was sick, and failed two of his four classes. It took him a good two weeks to recover.

While this story may be one more about bad decisions than used school books, the implications are clear: money is scarce enough for college students even if they get half-priced used books.

The Academic Implications of Used School Books

Academics have been shown to be improved by having used school books as well.

While some students will complain about having a pre-highlighted book with notes in the margins, studies have shown that highlighted textbooks actually improve your reading comprehension. Almost all college students have been shown to be very good at reading comprehension, and therefore they also show proficiency at locating the topic sentences and main ideas. Having these pre-outlined books is a great benefit to your ability to speed read the topics and do less work for the same intake of information.

Having all of these underlines is one thing, but occasionally you can also find old final exam review sheets, notes about questions on tests, information on what assignments teachers will require, and even someone’s old final exams that were lazily tucked in between the pages and not removed when the book was sorted. This is a huge advantage, and one that should not be overlooked.

Conclusion

Overall, no student should be left out of the sweepstakes when it comes to buying used school books. Get to your school’s bookstore early, and make sure you grab them as quickly as possible. If you can’t do that, write down the right name and author of every book, and do a quick search on Amazon, or some similar website like that.

Many beginning writers are looking for a way to hone their craft and sharpen their writing skills, and there is no better place to start than with a literature contest. These contests can be on almost anything, from very short passages of less than 1,000 words, to entries where the minimum length is closer to 40,000 words or even more. Some of the contests offer cash prizes, and the most illustrious ones will include publishing contracts, though you’d need to be exceptional to enter into one of those.

If you’re just starting out, a short literature contest would be ideal. The fact is, the shorter the required piece is, the harder it will be to write, since you will need to say more with fewer words. However, what’s nice about these literature contests is that you won’t need to write as intricate a story, and therefore, it requires far less of a time investment. Some literature contests put a very small limit on the number of words you can include, as little as 100 words for prose, which really helps you improve your writing skill to include any details whatsoever.

Where to find Literature Contests

Depending on what area of the country you live in, you might find that there a large number of local literature contests going on all the time. Check colleges, universities, and local cafes which host poetry readings. Often, the local library is a great place to stop and ask for information on upcoming contests. Typically, most libraries will have at least one contest annually, although prizes are limited if any are given at all.

You can also look online. There are a variety of websites listing literature contests including this one, this one, and this one.

How to Submit to Literature Contests

A literature contest can be submitted to in a variety of ways. Most of the local contests require a paper submission, while most online contests request emails or plain-text submission. Also, with many local competitions, you will be required to write a short three or four sentence biography about yourself.

Winning a Literature Contest

The benefits of entering these contests are plentiful. For starters, having a deadline for submission will really get your mental gears turning, and help you finish all of those old writing projects that you currently keep stashed in your “to do” pile.

In addition to that, though, remember that you also will get some feedback on your work through where you are placed in the competition, and occasionally you may even get a letter or two from one of the judges who particularly enjoyed your work. All of this will really help to take your writing to the next level.

While I support the reading of just about any kind of books at any age, I have to admit to being a big believer in the classics. Some books are written that become wildly popular for a short time (think Harry Potter), but there are so many more out there which have experienced enduring popularity for hundreds of years or more. These are the best classic novels, my list of 10 top books.

These classic works of literature survive in our hearts and minds because the messages contained within the stories are timeless. They have touched the lives of countless people, and offered their simple wisdom to anyone who reads them. They deserve just as much attention as the newer books which seem to clog our reading lists in the typical high school classroom.

Unfortunately, times have changed since many of these books were first written, and the language and themes of many of these novels have become a little overwhelming for the majority of middle and high school children. Because this is a problem for every teacher, I decided to create a list of various titles from what I consider to be the best classic novels of classical literature that are not too overwhelming for middle and high school students, but aren’t so common in modern curriculum as “the Great Gatsby” or “to Kill a Mockingbird” which are required reading in almost any English classroom. These are some of my choices for best classic novels which have a combination of being relatively easy to read, and being fairly high-interest, faster-paced novels that your students will enjoy. If you are teaching these kind of kids, take a look at our list and incorporate some of the choices into your yearly lesson plans.

10 Top Books to Read – Best Classic Novels

10. Call of the Wild by Jack London – A domesticated dog named Buck feels his fierce natural instincts start to return as he is enlisted in a sled dog team in Alaska. While it is a little violent, this is a quintessential nature-lover’s story that the young men of the room will really get into. This is one of the most popular of my 10 top novels for middle school teachers.
9. War of the Worlds by Jules Verne – What high school student doesn’t want to read about an alien invasion? Exactly. This is a high-interest novel that was written during the radio era, and gives some unique insight into the effect that media has on our culture (just read about the backstory). This is criminally under-read by our younger generations.
8. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis – While it seems a little young for high schoolers, I think that this book offers a whole lot of different talking-points, and it’s fantasy plot (and recent movie adaptations) will help to really involve students in the lesson. Older students can examine the religious overtones hidden within the novel, while younger ones might simply appreciate the adventure.
7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – A futuristic look at what the world would be like with heavy censorship. Bradbury’s firemen start fires rather than put them out, and their book-burning mission causes all kinds of problems for their society. This is a quick read, which makes it perfect for lower-achieving students who don’t have the effort for the longer novels on the list.
6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – Who doesn’t know the basic story of one of the most famous horror movie villains of all time? What you’ll find in Mary Shelley’s novel, however, is significantly different than what you’ll see in almost any film adaptation of the book. In this novel, you’re exposed to a gentler, more intelligent movie monster than you might expect.
5. A Separate Peace by John Knowles – A classic story of friendship between boys on opposite sides of a war. John Knowles writes with passion, and his characters are similar in age to the students who will be reading it, which always makes a story more interesting.
4. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens – A young orphan is mistreated by an oppressive system which doesn’t give enough aid to the poor. While Oliver Twist is certainly one of the most challenging books on the list because of it’s length, it is certainly readable by your average high school sophomore. This is a great novel to use when history classes begin covering the Rockefellers, labor unions, the Great Depression and the like, when poverty becomes a major theme in American History. Be aware when thinking about this one, however, that my paperback edition is 462 pages long, so it may be too overwhelming for any but honors students.

10 Top Books to Read – The Three Best classic Novels

3. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien – When I was a young man, my number one complaint about the choices for high school reading was that there wasn’t enough action in the books I was reading. Tolkien’s Hobbit has plenty of excitement, is short enough to base an entire unit around, challenging for middle schoolers, and full of enough talking points for high schoolers to find the many hidden connections between the story as presented here, and Norse Mythology, which it draws heavily on.
2. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – A young man is beset upon by a criminal in the first chapter of this book, who later reforms, becomes wealthy, and helps young Pip become a gentleman. The moral of the story is all about self-improvement and believing in yourself, which is a great message for all teenagers to be exposed to, and it also includes a number of references to socioeconomics, and how that affects the way in which we are all perceived.
1. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque – This is the story of a young, teenage soldier in World War I, along with some of the horrors he has seen along the way. When I taught English, this was the book that my students most enjoyed reading of all of my best classic novels, and while it is full of graphic images, it’s well worth incorporating into your reading lists.

Best Classic Novels Runners Up – 10 Top Books That Didn’t Make the Cut

Honorable mentions include Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, and many others. These are just meant to get you started.