The University of Mississippi Division of Outreach and Continuing Education and Office of Professional Development and Lifelong Learning have teamed up with the Institute of Reading Development to offer a class to students that will increase reading speed and aid with study strategies.
“After conducting some research into non-academic classes to offer to our students, we decided that this Speed Reading (and Study Strategies) class would be beneficial to the student population,” Mary Leach, director of the Office of Professional Development and Lifelong Learning, said.
The four-day program will be offered on Oct. 8, 9, 15 and 16. Students will have the choice to attend from either 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. or 1:30 to 5 p.m.
Though this class hasn’t been offered in the past, there have been similar programs online.
“We have been offering online test preparation classes for students who are interested in taking the entrance exams for professional and graduate schools, and they have been very beneficial to our students,” Leach said.
Leach said they hope to have at least 25 students in each class, and they want to continue to offer it each fall.
“It is possible that we may be able to start other types of programs for students of all ages during the summer months, which will help in bridging the gap between summer break and the beginning of a new school year,” she said.
Director for the Institute of Reading John Boyd said the skills and strategies they teach can be applied to any reading and studying circumstances and are useful for everyone.
“This program is unique in two key ways,” Boyd said. “First, it offers a dynamic workshop environment in which students practice reading and study skills (with) a variety of materials, with direct, individualized feedback from the instructor. Second, this program has wide-ranging benefits for students from any field.”
The program focuses on helping students develop effective skills and strategies for reading faster, improving comprehension, studying textbooks and improving engagement with reading.
“A core feature of the program curriculum is our emphasis on students’ active decision-making and cognitive control over their own reading processes,” Boyd said. “We work with students to bring a metacognitive approach to their reading choices, helping them identify how to use the skills and strategies from the course effectively in their critical engagement with their own scholarly materials.”
Boyd said everyone should have the experience of reading with confidence, success and enjoyment.
“The speed reading and study strategies that we teach help our students have that experience,” he said. “Through reading faster, improving comprehension, improving study skills and taking active control over their own reading choices, students are able to more critically and meaningfully engage with both nonfiction and fiction texts in deeper ways.”
Boyd said these are skills students can continue to apply to their reading for the rest of their lives.
“Reading is such a profound and omnipresent form of communication throughout our world,” Boyd said. “We want to share the tools for successful reading with as many students as possible.”
Junior psychology and nursing major Dakota Dilmore said he thinks the class will be very beneficial to students.
“I personally would sign up because increasing my reading speed would cut my study time by a lot so I could focus on comprehension,” Dilmore said. “People who struggle with test taking, I think, would be more comfortable with tests knowing that they are going in better equipped than before.”
