Thair J. Rahman, Iraq
I think that I have the same problem. Most of my students if not all of them want to improve their reading speed but they are lacking behind. Anyhow my piece of advice for all English language teachers is to tell their students to read with their eyes before they read with their voices.

Mei, China
Students can improve their reading speed by learning speed-reading skills and doing more practice, as practice makes perfect. Speed reading skills, on the other hand, are closely connected with the students' level of grammar, vocabulary, understanding of the particular cultural background in which the reading is introduced, etc. Thus if students want to improve reading skills, they have to have learn aspects of the language that are related to reading speed. I do not know the levels of the students, but I recommend you a set of texts-College English Band 1 and 2 by Shanghai Fudan University. In them there are speed reading materials and some reading skills are in the intensive textbooks.

If the students have a lower level, relevant skills may be introduced, which include giving up some bad reading habits. These include using the fingers to help move along the lines, vocalizing, looking up every word in the dictionary, reading word for word, not phrases to phrases or a cluster of words at once glance, etc. There is not a cure-all textbook. What is needed is to first all of assess the levels of the learners so as to develop and/or find out good materials and resources as well as relevant strategies to help them to meet the needs of the learners.

In China, some students do not have enough English and thus it is impossible for them to read well even if they learn reading skills. In this case, increasing vocabulary is vital, etc. Recently, I found a word on P 3 of the TESOL Matters (June/July/August 2003) from the present message, i.e. TESOLving. I was amazed at the creative word that exactly described the roles of us TESOL professionals. Indeed, we are the problem solving people in the classroom. Unlike actors who can repeat what are required of them on the stage, we, as teachers, have to constantly learn knowledge and skills to suit to the need of our learners.

Larry, South Korea
I did a research project on a 'speed reading' (I don't like that term. It reminds of the Woody Allen Joke: War and Peace? It's about Russia.) program that I used for EAP students in Australia because it became obvious that slow reading is a real problem. My feelings and the student feedback on the project strongly indicated that there were real benefits from these activities.
I have trialled various activities but the one that assisted my learners most was a weekly timed reading of about 150-200 words with multiple choice (tick) answers. 'Speed reading' without any sort of comprehension check is fairly worthless.

Jason Ho, Hong Kong, China
My students have the same problem, which is particularly obvious when they are doing their comprehension section in tests. This morning, I told them to read for the content word and guess the meaning from the context. Hope it will work.

Marek, Taiwan
"Speed reading" does not help your students - though there are books which will tell that it would! Blatant nonsense! Probably, you have heard people say "Oh those Chinese/Asian students - they really study hard" when seeing them in university libraries overseas! Sure, they study hard! But the reason for spending so much time in libraries is to re-read materials/books a couple of times before they comprehend the issues involved in their subject. I am not Asian but had a similar experience when studying in a native-English context during my embryonic times of trying to decode a written text and make sense out of it! There's no magic - you can still read fast, as many native language people do and not to comprehend what's "behind" the meaning. Speed reading would not be one of my priorities in EFL/ESL classes - vocabulary selection/corpus studies or frequency of occurence are of much greater importance than speed reading!