Some Useful Speed Reading Techniques

With the alarmingly increasing availability of information to people nowadays, need for speed reading is also on the rise. It is a collection of various techniques and methods that help in increasing your reading speed without actually reducing your retention and comprehension capabilities. This is becoming more and more popular among students and professionals alike. This is because students benefit through this skill by covering more chapters than their contemporaries. In the corporate world, employees with this skill are able to comprehend various reports, newspapers, emails, correspondence and other technical papers faster. Thus, it improves the efficiency and productivity of the person along with providing him more time to deal with other facets of life.

When Children Fail in School: Understanding Learned Helplessness

 Learned helplessness is the belief that our own behavior does not influence what happens next; that is, behavior does not control outcomes or results. For example, when a student believes that she is in charge of the outcome, she may think, “If I study hard for this test, I’ll get a good grade.” On the contrary, a learned helpless student thinks, “No matter how hard I study for this test, I’ll always get a bad grade.” In school, learned helplessness relates to poor grades and underachievement, and to behavior difficulties. Students who experience repeated school failure are particularly prone to develop a learned helpless response style. Because of repeated academic failure, these students begin to doubt their own abilities, leading them to doubt that they can do anything to overcome their school difficulties. Consequently, they decrease their achievement efforts, particularly when faced with difficult materials, which leads to more school failure. This pattern of giving up when facing difficult tasks reinforces the child’s belief that he or she cannot overcome his or her academic difficulties.

Learned helplessness seems to contribute to the school failure experienced by many students with a learning disability. In a never-ending cycle, children with a learning disability frequently experience school difficulties over an extended period, and across a variety of tasks, school settings, and teachers, which in turn reinforces the child’s feeling of being helpless.