There are a number of basic points that need to be considered when seeking to improve L2 learners' reading speed.

First, reading speed and comprehension are closely linked. As seen in 7.1.3, slow reading can often lead to poor understanding because it places too great a burden on the reader's memory: by the time a reader has reached the end of a multiple-clause sentence or a long paragraph, he or she has often forgotten the beginning (although it is not clear whether people understand readily because of the speed at which they read or whether they read rapidly because they understand easily). Any work on improving reading speed must therefore avoid challenging texts.

Second, most people would agree that we read more quickly when we are enjoying what we are reading; forcing students to read texts that hold little interest for them personally is likely to make the task of reading a chore. (Extensive reading has a major role to play here.)

Third, one thing we sometimes forget when talking about reading speed is the legibility of the material. Unclear or densely printed text is difficult to read and can slow reading speed considerably. It also contributes to low motivation to read.

Fourth, word recognition is fundamental. This can be practised through rapid phrase and word recognition exercises that get learners to react quickly and accurately to the appearance of lexical items, in order to help develop their visual image of selected key words. For example, simple matching exercises such as the following where the learner has to spot the pair as quickly as possible:

The same can be practised with short phrases (e.g. adjective and noun, pronoun and verb, and so on). The important thing is that there should be plenty of examples for learners to work through as quickly as possible.

To summarise, the four prerequisites for work on increasing learners' reading speed are:

• material must be readily comprehensible;
• it must be interesting to the reader;
• it must be clearly legible;
• it should include regular word recognition activities.

Beyond this we need to take account of the fact that reading is not always a strictly linear process and that effective readers do not process text word by word. When we read, our eyes tend to jump across the page, taking in text in chunks or 'fixations'. It is generally acknowledged that the fewer fixations one makes, the more effective one's reading is.

Furthermore, we tend to chunk text in sense groups. Thus, to take Text 17 ('Karla') as an example, a beginning reader might chunk the first sentence like this:

A more fluent reader, on the other hand, might break the sentence up as follows:

The chunking that takes place will depend on both familiarity with the language (see section 7.1.3 on sight vocabulary) and on accustomed reading style: if fixations in L1 are frequent, they are unlikely to be radically different in L2.

In L2, beginning readers tend to process text word by word, but they need to be encouraged from the start to improve their reading habits by practising chunking on easy texts. Computers have a role to play here as they can be programmed to present language on screen in phrases, either by revealing the text chunk by chunk or moving through the text at a certain speed and highlighting it phrase by phrase. More conventionally, all the phrases in a fairly basic text might be bracketed together or separated by spaces. For example, Text 8 ('Recommendations aux résidents') might be presented as follows:

Another technique is to chunk a text in narrow columns to get students into the habit of reading in sense groups. For example, using the same text, one might present students with the following on the overhead projector and gradually uncover each line at an appropriate pace:

Les étudiants sont responsables du mobilier et du matériel mis a leur disposition dans le logement qui leur est attribué. Ce mobilier ne doit ni être démonté, ni être déplacé.

A further approach is to employ a text mask. Students can hold a piece of paper or a bookmark above the line they are reading and move it down as they read. This helps readers to focus on the line beneath the mask, while allowing the eye to move forward freely to the next line, something not possible when using a mask held below the line. Nuttall (1996: 59-60) suggests using a cut-out mask of the type below:

Figure 7.1 Mask to promote reading speed
(Adapted from Nutall, 1996: 60)

This reveals one line and the start of a second, encouraging the reader's eye to move down lines without a break. Since the mask blocks out the rest of the page, it prevents eyes being distracted by other features on the page and allows readers to control and steadily increase their reading speed.

Of course, encouraging students to improve their reading speed presupposes they and you know what it is at present. It is a good idea to establish this early on, using a relatively straightforward text to find out how many words per minute they can cover with good understanding. After a few weeks or months the teacher can measure any improvement in speed. It is important that the teacher recommends a text for this follow-up measurement so students can be sure the level of difficulty of the text is approximately the same as the first time round. In periodically checking their reading speed in this way, students can benchmark their own performance and check progress. The teacher does, however, need to emphasize that progress may not always be linear: text difficulty is not easy to replicate and if one is tired, or if one is reading about an uninteresting subject, speed may suffer.