Dr. Eldon L. McMurray has taught reading on all levels from elementary to college.  He is a university professor, a textbook, co-author, a scholar of brain active learning, a researcher of best practices for teaching and learning effectiveness, and an award-winning educator.  He served on the Utah governor's Board for Academic Literacy.  He has taught Reading and Critical Thinking, Power Reading and Learning Strategies, and Speed Reading at UVU and MT Hood Community College, Eastern Oregon University at La Grand and Brigham Young University.  

Eldon has co-authored a number of textbooks: Accelerated Reading for Students and Professionals and The Peer Mentor Companion, Becoming a Master Student 11th and 12th edition. 

Why do some readers struggle?

The truth is, that those who don’t read fast enough are not much better off than those who can’t read.  Many people who learn to read don’t read as fast or as well as they could for the following reasons:

1. They have undetected eye-tracking problems which can cause headaches and visual distortions while reading. 

2. They have attention challenges that make it uncomfortable to sit still long enough to read or learn to enjoy reading. 

3. They don’t know or understand many of the words they encounter, because they haven't been given the right tools to do so.  

What is reading?

Language begins as a child experiments by making sounds and imitating the sounds of the words of their parent or family. Usually the first words the child learns are mama and papa. Next, they learn their name then the labels for things in their home environment. For instance, bottle, crib, floor, window, brother, sister, car, etc.

Reading begins when the sounds of the oral language are written in print. English is an alphabetic language where letters represent the sounds that create words. These words then shape the meaning and describe the thoughts and images that we use to communicate.  

As we became a literate society, we began to build and store more and more ideas in writing and some authors are able to communicate their ideas better than others.  There are several levels of meaning that are communicated when the author begins to record their thoughts and ideas on paper. Authors then express their ideas with intention and emotional words to capture the reader's attention and imagination.  For instance, in a love letter, the author writes with love in their heart and the words they choose reflect the emotions they are writing. When the reader reads the letter they should be able to feel the love from the words that the author use to express their feelings.  

An important part of reading comprehension is understanding the emotion of the author's words as well as the definition of the words.   

How do we read?

Each sound is a level of meaning called a phoneme. Each letter is a parallel level of meaning known as a grapheme. The most fundamental skill for a developing reader is to understand this relationship. These graphemes are combined to form parts of words, simple at first, then more than one syllable, then words. Next the words are combined into another even higher level of meaning called phrases. Then these phrases are punctuated into sentences and sentences combined into larger units of meaning called paragraphs. Understanding paragraphs is called comprehension of the main idea, who or what is the paragraph about and what are the major supporting concepts in the paragraph.  

Is Slow Reading a Disability? 

If you find that you become anxious or start to procrastinate, when given a reading assignment you might start to think you can’t read.  This is not true! You may read well but are a slow reader that hasn’t yet developed the necessary skills to read with speed or ease. This may cause you to avoid reading at all costs because of the fear of failure.  

Reading slow is not considered a learning disability, but it can cause as much frustration or anxiety as a learning disability, such as dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactive (ADHD) readers might feel. While some readers may have dyslexia or other learning challenges, most students who are simply struggling readers have not yet mastered the mechanics of reading well and the ability to remember what they read. 

How do we become better readers?

Becoming a better reader starts with the intention of understanding the reasoning of the author.  Who or what is the passage about and why does the reader think the author cares when we read what they have written. In fact, that is the first guiding rule of reading. The second and third rules of intention extend or play along with the first.