Significance of silent reading

Reading education materials is a primary aspect in the process of learning and being educated. Two patterns are followed by the readers as far as education is concerned - loud/oral reading and silent reading. Knowing the variation between loud and silent reading is vital to an individual's educational lifetime.
Oral reading actually follows an instant recognition of a thought, while silent readers immediately get the thought. Oral reading is a complex process which involves mental interpretations based on eye sweeps of the text accompanied by vocalisation. Conversely, silent readers simply interpret the materials through a series of eye sweeps without delay resulting from vocalisation. For the oral readers, the pronunciation of the words is most important, but the meanings of the words are most important for the silent readers. Vocalisation reduces and limits the speed of oral readers. Reading requires much deduction at certain levels. Readers can use deduction to their advantage to build organisational relationships and find the meaning of words.
Often, silent reading is considered as recreational reading or independent reading since it simply requires a relaxed mood and an individual concern. Silent reading improves a student's thinking process by helping the student concentrate on the topic, rather than the pronunciation of individual words. When we read silently, we can mentally visualise the topic being read and discussed. Additionally, we do not need to read one word at a time. When teachers encourage their students to read silently, they are actually helping them develop strategies for reading efficiency - to read promptly along with better comprehension. It also aids a student to develop the skills of purposed reading since the focus lies on understanding the content without having the additional burden of paying attention to pronunciation. Silent reading helps students to focus their attention on the text. Their increased concentration on the text is sustained until the entire text is read. Students can absorb ideas into their subconscious mind and then use them in their daily lives.
Apparently, research has shown that reading ability is positively correlated with the extent to which students read recreationally. According to National Centre for Education Statistics (NCES) in the United States - educators are increasingly encouraging their students to read and write on their own. In 2004, 9-17 years old students who reported reading for fun at least once a week had higher average reading proficiency scores than students who reported reading never or hardly ever for fun.
Nowadays, teachers divide their classes into small groups, so that students can share their thoughts about the books they have read. Teachers often provide a question that serves as the focus of group discussion. The question may support the curriculum, focusing attention on the climax, the author's point of view, or another literary element that the teacher has introduced in the class. Sometimes, teachers invite students to work in pairs. A pair of 'reading friends' might select a book to read together and talk about it. Some of the adverse problems experienced by oral readers include vocalisation, excessive eye fixations - reading one word at a glance instead of whole phrases.
Moreover, benefits of effective silent reading include - steady improvement of educational efficiency, exploration of a wide variety of reading material, learning to read with purpose and confidence in terms of academic qualification, business or recreation. The successful evolution of oral reading to silent reading includes learning to give proper attention to diverse reading material, determining the vital criteria of reading the text, grasping main ideas with minimum eye fixations, finding the relative ideas in the text, achieving comprehension of the text without difficulty, and subconsciously determining what might be best for future recollection. Hence, oral reading is vital in the beginning while silent reading is beneficial for lifetime. The ability to sit and silently read a text is a skill that all students need while they shift from secondary into higher education. Similarly, students should have multiple opportunities to practise silent reading each day. They must learn how to comprehend texts on their own and develop the ability to stick with a text or focus on what it says over a period of time.
Furthermore, we tend to read silently in our practical lives and we do it naturally. We do not want to seek unnecessary attention of the people around us. We simply want to learn the message from the texts. Silent reading helps us read more swiftly and make faster connection between words. It gives us the silence we need to concentrate and process the information. Loud reading is considered a performance where the reader worries more about pronunciation than he does the ideas in the text. However, there are many words we do not need to be able to pronounce or understand. If we read silently, we can skip past anything that we think is too difficult or insignificant.
We use our visual pathways to form memory links at the time of reading anything. We remember the material because it was something we saw. People who have photographic memory are excellent at making these memory connections. For those who do not have any photographic memory, relying solely on visual memory may leave them with many gaps, so they have to find other ways of memorisation. When reading out loud, we form auditory links in our memory pathways. We can establish visual links along with auditory links if we do silent reading.
The writer is the manager of BRAC Education Program.
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