There is another interesting fact about eye movement. If you record the eye movement of someone reading, you will notice that, from time to time, the reader goes back and looks again at something he has read before; in other words he regresses to an earlier part of the text, probably he realises he does not understand passage properly. Then he comes back to where he left off and continued reading. At one time, it was thought that regression was a fault, but it is intact a very necessary activity in efficient reading.
There are several different kind of faults in reading, which are usually more exaggerated with foreign learners. The most common one is that most people read more slowly than they should. There is no rate at which people ought to read, of course: it depends on your purpose in reading, how difficult the language is, how unfamiliar the material and so on. But most people read everything at the same low speed, and do not seem to realise that they can read faster or slower as required. Other people say the words to themselves, or move their lips- these habits slow the reader down no something near speaking speed, which is of course, much slower than reading speed. Another habit which can slow you down is following the line with your finger, or with a pen.
If you want to be able to read faster, the secret is simply to practice under timed conditions. This means that you should give yourself a certain amount of time to read with understanding, then check your time if you have finished.
Students who have practice fast reading even for only an hour a week, have shown average improvement of over 50% over a term of ten weeks' duration. Reading fast does not necessarily mean reading with less comprehension- in fact, student usually show a small increase in comprehension as well as dramatic increase in speed.
