Getting up to speed

The answers are important because reading too slowly not only wastes time, but it can also hurt understanding. Many slow readers, for example, have difficulty remembering the ideas at the beginning of a sentence by the time they reach the end.

I know that many Thai students read too slowly from my 13 years in Thai classrooms. During that time I conducted many reading speed tests and I found that some students were reading only slightly faster than one word per second, or sixty words per minute. I also found that the students could read faster if they tried. In fact, by the end of the school term most of my students were reading at least two words per second and some were up to four words per second or more. That's not bad for reading in a second language.

Now let’s see how fast you are reading in English. Let’s begin with a very short story – only 259 words. Try to read it a little more quickly than you normally would. Time yourself and then determine your reading rate. If you finish in one minute, your rate is obviously 259 words per minute (wpm) for this story.

Two minutes would be half that or about 130 wpm and so on. That’s a bit slow and you should try to read a bit more quickly in the future. If it takes you three or more minutes, you should definitely make an effort to speed up.

Just to make sure you actually read the story, I have included some questions at the end. You should be able to answer most of them from a single reading. Don’t worry if you make a mistake or two, however. Few people understand everything from one quick reading.

Have a whale of a time protecting the world's biggest fish The whale shark is one of those creatures most divers around the world dream to see. The largest fish on this blue planet, they can grow 12 metres long or more! And Thai divers have been pretty lucky as a few of these harmless marine giants – who feed on nothing larger than plankton – still swim in our waters. Believed to be protected by holy spirits, they have been left alone by local fishermen who otherwise might have wiped them out a long time ago. However, it seems supernatural powers are no longer enough to guarantee the survival of these fantastic creatures. A couple of months ago, an alarming report appeared in several newspapers that in 1999 more than 1,000 whale sharks had been killed for their fins by Taiwanese fishing boats in the Indian ocean. And it is feared these ruthless hunters – who cut the fins off the sharks and leave them to die in pain on the sea floor – may one day come after our big friends. To prevent such a thing from happening, a group of concerned divers – led by Dr Thon Thamrongnawasawat of Kasetsart University – is running a campaign to give whale sharks legal protection, by urging the government to put this particular fish on the list of the country's "preserved species." And they need your signatures to support their cause. If you wish to join in this effort, please write your opinions to the group’s email address: rhincodon@seapapa.com.

Decide whether the follow statements are true or false according to the story.

1. Whale sharks are the largest of all fish.
2. While they look harmless, they are actually man-eaters.
3. Thai fishermen earn money by selling their fins.
4. Some local divers are worried that whale sharks may some day be hunted here.
5. You can help them keep the whale sharks safe.

Now try to push yourself to read a little faster with a longer story. I have chosen a rather easy story, so it will be a good test of your reading speed. The subject is probably very familiar to you, so that you can get the main ideas even if you don’t understand all the words.

The story has 695 words, so if you can finish it in one minute you read it at a rate of 695 wpm (some people really read that fast incidentally). Finishing it in five minutes would give you a rate of 139 wpm and ten minutes (much too slow) would mean a rate of 69 wpm.

Look at the picture at the beginning of story before you begin so that you can get an idea what it is about. I have explained a few words from the story so that vocabulary won’t slow you down as you read.

First, read through the list of words below. All will appear in the story, so you should understand them before you begin.

Next look at the picture and read the caption. Then, when you are ready, begin to read the story. Do not look at the questions in advance.

Healing scars left by ‘The Beach’ – or on it

The production team for "The Beach" bulldozes some of the sand dunes on Maya Bay to transform the island into the Western ideal of "paradise". At the end of The Beach, the main character, Richard, says that after all the things he went through during his soul-searching journey, he survived, but with a lot of scars. The same is probably true with Maya Bay, where the movie was shot. While there have been reports the Forestry Department was satisfied with the production's rehabilitation effort and plans to return the five-million-baht ($138,800) bond to 20th Century Fox, one local activist insisted that allowing the movie production to alter the national park was a big mistake and that the beach itself still bears some permanent scars. Booskasem Kwo, an artist and native of Krabi, led the protest against The Beach's production. "Since the production team moved out last November," he said, "the sand dunes have eroded by two or three metres. With no plants to collect and retain moisture, the sand has become very dry." "The western wind, which blows directly into Maya Bay, has aggravated the erosion," Mr Booskasem continued. "With no sand dunes which act like a wall to protect the beach, I don't know how deep the erosion will be in the future," he said. He travels to Maya Bay almost every month now to monitor its conditions. To enable filming of the sea and to make the beach wide enough so that the characters could play football on it, The Beach’s production team bulldozed two dunes in front of Maya Bay. They also removed plants and weeds that grew on the beach and planted 60 coconut trees. The production team filmed its final shot on Maya Bay in February, 1999. They were obliged under a contract made with the Forestry Department to return the beach to its original condition. The contract ended last October. "The restoration team has removed the coconut trees from the island as promised. They also tried to recreate the sand dunes by dumping some sand in and tightening it with a back-hoe. They drove some bamboo poles into the sand, hoping that they would keep the sand in place while waiting for new plants to take root," Mr Booskasem said. The poles did not hold. In early November last year, a severe storm swept into Maya Bay and took with it all the recreated sand dunes and most of the newly-grown plants. "The beach has weathered stronger storms. It has never eroded this much. I wish the Forestry Department and the Tourism Authority of Thailand could see what we have lost. Maya Bay is no longer the same. "People from Twentieth Century Fox always claim that they rid the beach of rubbish. Why haven't they looked at the damage caused by their bulldozing of the sand dunes? Why haven't they shown responsibility?" But Dr Chaweewan Hutacharern, director of Forest Environment Research and Development Division at the Forestry Department said, "The restoration contract expired on October 20. I inspected the work they have done. I think they did a great job. The team removed the coconut trees a few days after they finished the shooting. They dug up about 100 metres of the sand dunes out of a total length of 300 metres. "About the erosion, it is probably caused by the unusually heavy storm this year. Every island suffered the same kind of erosion. Spider lilies were re-grown. They might appear a little dry now because it is the dry season. They will thrive again when rain falls. We asked that Beach Productions Ltd, which is doing the restoration work, retain water sprinklers even if the contract had expired. And they agreed to do it even if they had to pay about 40,000 baht a day for water." Dr Chaweewan said staff from Beach Production are still stationed on the island to supervise the restoration. She said 20th Century Fox has asked that since they had fulfilled their obligation under the contract, the five-million-baht bond they deposited against ecological damage be returned. "We will have to wait for the Director General to approve the bond return. But as far as the inspection is concerned, I think everything looks fine. I am satisfied with the work."

Answer the true-false questions below. Do not refer back to the story.

1. The Beach production crew finished filming almost one year ago.
2. Since then, everyone agrees that they failed to keep their promise to restore the beach to its original condition.
3. Because of this, the Forestry Department will probably keep the five-million-baht bond deposited by the film company.
4. According to Mr Booskasem, erosion on Maya Beach has been caused mainly by the bulldozing of its sand dunes before the filming.
5. Before the movie was filmed, the beach had about 60 coconut trees growing behind it.
6. The restoration team tried to rebuild the sand dunes.
7. They used bamboo poles to try to keep the new sand in place.
8. These poles did a good job of holding the sand during a bad sotrm last November.
9. According to Dr Chawewan, much of the damage now seen on the beach is due to natural causes.
10. Mr Booskasem and Dr Chawewan disagree about whether the scars are permanent.