Why Teachers Should Use Timed Reading in ESL Classes
Jeremy Browning

Students are faced with a bombardment of information need to be better prepared for the demands that reading in society places on them. This paper explores the importance of gaining higher reading speed via timed reading and how strategic application is important for its success. When teachers apply timed reading to their program, they better prepare their students for the fast-paced world ahead of them.
Introduction
Reading is an all-important language skill that is now in more demand than in any time in our history. With the exposure of the Internet in a global arena, students need to master reading in order to understand the vast knowledge the world embraces them with. It has been said that the literate adult today is reading more in one week than their great-grandfather did in a whole year (Swalm and Kling, 1973). This fact places pressures on the student to perform at a higher level than the student before them.
It is the belief of many teaching professionals that the ESL student needs to be able to read at a level challengeable to a native speaker of English in order to keep up with the academic workload. The idea of this paper is that through the training in timed reading, the student will increase their reading speed, which will better prepared them for the challenges they will encounter when they enter the collegiate playing field (Anderson 1999). There are many reasons for implementing timed reading into a reading program and it is my wish to elaborate on some of them in this paper.
The Benefits of Faster Reading
There are many benefits in gaining a faster reading rate and Klaeser (1977) presents four positive points in this regard. The first one is the amount of time you will save when you`re able to double your speed (for example). With an increase in speed, the student will be able to cover more materials than at a slower speed. Figure A illustrates the gains a student will make when their speed is increased.
This illustration shows what the gains are for students that are slow readers (150 words per minute (the average ESL student entering college)) versus students that are good readers (350 words per minute). The difference in quantity is at about 2.33 times more for the faster students. If the student increases their production to 250 WPM, they would be increasing their reading production by 67%. These are important gains for the student that will promote academic success.
The second advantage is that readers are able to concentrate better which leads to greater comprehension. Of course this area is under debate because there have been studies of students that lost comprehension when they were striving to increase their reading speed. This is usually the cause of "rushed reading" and contains little more technique than scanning. However, it is believed that through an "effective" timed reading program, students can attain an increased reading rate and comprehension.
Thirdly, with the increase in potential speed and comprehension, academic grades tend to rise as well. This is all due to the control of extra time, which allows for greater understanding.
Timed Reading Rates
Slow Reader
(150 words per minute)
Fair reader
(250 words per minute)
Good Reader
(350 words per minute)

1 Week
3/4 Book
1 1/4 Books
1 3/4 Books

1 Month
3 Books
5 Books
7 Books

1 Year
36 Books
60 Books
84 Books

10 Years
360 Books
600 Books
840 Books

Figure A
Lastly and most importantly, students will enjoy the act of reading more, which promotes greater extensive reading, an added area for increased reading speed and comprehension. With increased reading rate and motivation for extended reading, students will encounter frequent and repeated vocabulary, which will transcend into other areas of language skills development.
Reading Strategies
Like any reading program, increasing reading rate is more than just opening a book and jumping into the text. Timed reading involves the use of various strategies in conjunction with in-class exercises and extensive timed reading. Timed reading isn`t reading as-fast-as-you-can over a passage and simply marking the gradual improvement (if there are any). It involves reading strategies via the teacher`s instruction.
Successful readers reported that they used various strategies such as reading in broad phrases, skipping inessential words, guessing from context, and continuing to read the text even when they encountered a term that they didn`t know (Wallace 2001). Training in strategic use is what timed reading promotes and reflects what Devine means by, "...training enhances the metacognitive knowledge base of readers and results in improved reading performance."(Devine 1993)
Another strategy mentioned by Wallace is the ability to make informed predictions as the student progresses through the text (Goodman 1967, Smith 1971, Wallace 2001). Through making predictions, students take an interactive role in the reading process, which Blanton states is "...at the heart of literacy, formal learning, and academic success" (Blanton 1994). This interaction is stimulated by the reader`s background knowledge that acts as