read aloud or silently

[suMMit]

Which do you think is better for the first few years of study?

[DavyJonesLocker]

Definitely better for enforcing pronunciation but hard to sustain reading stamina. I tried several times but lost momentum quickly . Also can only do it in your home and I often like to go to a coffee shop to read. Stops me getting distracted.

[imron]

Why not both?

[Dawei3]

I'm a huge fan of Pimsleur's teaching approach which advocates speaking out-loud.  This teaches your mouth to pronounce things correctly.

 

Before using Pimsleur, I would have thought you need to have a teacher correct your pronunciation.  However, hearing it spoken correctly and repeating it back, my pronunciation got better & better.  

 

Although some of Pimsleur's content is questionable, I think it's teaching approach is very effective.  Speaking out loud is key.  

[abcdefg]

During my first couple years, teachers always urged me to read out loud as part of my homework. I was skeptical but did it anyhow. I think it probably helped. Not sure why, since nobody was listening. Perhaps it was just that if I stumbled over how to pronounce a word, it was obvious and I had to pause and get it straightened out. If I had been reading silently, there would have been a strong temptation to just gloss it over and keep going; it would have been easier to ignore things I didn't know. 

[Enjune Zhang]

There is gap between what you think you could and the fact, so that's why reading aloud helps you detect the disparity between your actual condition and the ideal one.One needs to read aloud to see the room of further improvement.

It helps if you may get it recorded and compare it with the correct pronunciation if there is any example available. Or you could download an app where you could transform the text input into voice. So you know how it is correctly pronounced.  

[dtcamero]

ironically i remember taking an HSK test where one essay was describing techniques students could use to improve reading speeds.

their biggest advice was to not mouth the words or imagine pronounciation as you're going because it will slow you down. 

i'm finding in practice that that has to be true as your reading speed will eventually outpass your comfortable speaking speed. 

anyway the essay really slowed down my test because i was too interested in the subject matter to just skim for correct answers 

[imron]

This is definitely true.  People build up reading habits such as moving mouth and so on when they are a beginner, and then those habits stick even as your ability improves to the point where you no longer need them.  Actively drilling to avoid that can help solve that problem, and if it was a problem you can probably double reading speed with a bit of effort.  By far though, the biggest hit to reading speed is encountering an unknown word or character.

[DavyJonesLocker]

2 hours ago, dtcamero said:

their biggest advice was to not mouth the words or imagine pronounciation as you're going because it will slow you down. 

i'm finding in practice that that has to be true as your reading speed will eventually outpass your comfortable speaking speed. 

 

 

It depends on why your doing it though. If it's for pronunciation then I think its a good practice especially to enforce tones. For just general comprehension the yes I see that being valid. 

 

 

46 minutes ago, imron said:

People build up reading habits such as moving mouth and so on when they are a beginner, and then those habits stick even as your ability improves to the point where you no longer need them. 

 

I haven't experienced this myself . I think it just naturally disappears as your level gets better. If I look at a simple graded reader then I read silently. 

 

48 minutes ago, imron said:

Actively drilling to avoid that can help solve that problem, and if it was a problem you can probably double reading speed with a bit of effort. 

 

 

This was discussed before. My school tried to do this and I found it totally counter productive. I find it this has to be a natural development or I just will not improve. I tried many many times st home on advice from teachers and it was quite clearly a bad technique for me any way. I know I'm alone it that view.

When I look at similar texts yes it's much faster than years ago .

 

However I can see why it's a skill that may be important to people , exams , etc

 

[imron]

6 hours ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

My school tried to do this and I found it totally counter productive

Yes, but I think you mentioned they were getting you to do this with content above your level?  This is only worth doing on texts where you comfortably know *everything*.

 

6 hours ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

If I look at a simple graded reader then I read silently. 

 

Sure, but even if you are reading silently, you may still be doing it at a speed that was set as a beginner.  Maybe not, but it's definitely worth timing and measuring.

 

6 hours ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

However I can see why it's a skill that may be important to people , exams , etc

It's more than just exams though.  If you are reading at 100cpm and you can increase that to 200cpm with a little effort, then you can read twice as much in the same time, or the same amount in half the time.  This will have a measurable impact on your Chinese.

[DavyJonesLocker]

21 minutes ago, imron said:

Yes, but I think you mentioned they were getting you to do this with content above your level?  This is only worth doing on texts where you comfortably know *everything*.

 

 

Yes that's true good point. 

 

 

21 minutes ago, imron said:

Sure, but even if you are reading silently, you may still be doing it at a speed that was set as a beginner.  Maybe not, but it's definitely worth timing and measuring.

 

Although I'm not particularly interested in HSK I did find the time pressure to somewhat productive and as a measure of reading spread.

 

 

22 minutes ago, imron said:

If you are reading at 100cpm and you can increase that to 200cpm with a little effort, then you can read twice as much in the same time, or the same amount in half the time.  This will have a measurable impact on your Chinese.

 

 

I agree in principle , however a prerequisite is that you still understand to the same level what your reading . Herein lies the  problem. I find unnaturally rushing through a text the comprehension rate drops quite quickly and become counter productive towards learning 

 

[imron]

50 minutes ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

and become counter productive towards learning 

Correct.  This is why I don't recommend trying to increase your speeds on any text that still requires learning, and only do it on texts that are fully learnt.

 

The speed increase you get from doing that will then carry over in to normal reading and you'll find that even when you slow down, it will still be faster than what you could previously read at.

[DavyJonesLocker]

23 minutes ago, imron said:

Correct.  This is why I don't recommend trying to increase your speeds on any text that still requires learning, and only do it on texts that are fully learnt.

 

The speed increase you get from doing that will then carry over in to normal reading and you'll find that even when you slow down, it will still be faster than what you could previously read at.

 

 

Good good, glad we are on the same page!

[DeanaZimmerman]

Aloud is better for me. You will hear your pronounciation and find out if it is OK

[WeiLe]

I prefer reading aloud. Reading loud can let you practice both speaking and listening skills at the same time. That's because when you are reading loud, you sound you are pronouncing also goes back to your ear, so you are also practising listening skills.