day 183: summertime—increasing reading speed and comprehension with AceReader cd rom

If your child knows all of his phonics for reading, but is a slow or struggling reader or does not comprehend what he reads, you may desire to get a program to help him this summer.


While speed in reading is sometimes overrated, the fact is that when a child is a slow reader, he is seldom an enthusiastic reader. After all, who likes to do anything that is slow and laborious for him or her (adults included!)?


Our first two children did a lot of testing out of classes for college. Our oldest, Joshua, tested out of an entire BA in history except for two classes for which there were no tests available. Kayla, our missionary nurse, tested out of as many classes as were permitted for her two bachelors’ and one associate’s degrees. Speed reading training was a huge help to both of them in this endeavor—mainly because a student learns to recognize what is and what is not important in a text through speed reading training. (However, speed reading must be utilized judiciously—as Joshua has said, he cringes when he sees someone “speed reading” great literature!)


While you will not necessarily want to build speed reading skills per se in your middle school student, you will want to help him increase his reading speed if he is slow at reading (and especially if he dislikes reading because of this).


I will write in future days about comprehension building without a specific program, but for those desiring something immediately to aid in rate and comprehension of reading, I recommend a computer program available from our friends at the Timberdoodle company. This program, called AceReader, is a cd-rom program that can be used for multiple students at each child’s level.


Here is what Timberdoodle says about this program:


“AceReader is not designed to teach your child how to read, but instead focuses on helping him be more proficient at his reading. After taking a self-paced reading comprehension test to determine his base reading speed, your child will then work at reading drills and play skill-building games. Both tests and drills for grade levels one to twelve are included. Detailed records, program settings, and test results will be maintained in a separate database for multiple users. The program can even be customized if you would like to use your own drills and tests. In fact, if you choose to use the Comprehension Test Editor to create and edit your own comprehension tests or drills, you'll be delighted to know that AceReader Pro Deluxe also includes a readability analysis tool to help you determine the grade level and complexity of text you have added.






”While AceReader Pro Deluxe is a fairly frill-less program, emphasizing straightforward skill practice, it does have a couple of nifty features. For the child looking for a challenge, AceReader Pro Deluxe can be used to flash whole pages of text at desired speeds to develop PhotoReading techniques. Better yet, AceReader Pro Deluxe can also be used as a memorization tool because it can repeat material over and over while gradually increasing the speed. Of course, you can input whatever you would like your children to memorize, but Scripture suits our fancy. Because we can change the fonts, colors, number of words or lines, and speed, we avoid much of the monotony of repetition and enhance memory by presenting different views of the same text.”


Find out more and order this product at http://www.timberdoodle.com/AceReader_Pro_Deluxe_p/665-025.htm