当今世界是一个“知识爆炸”的信息时代。以技术信息为主的各种信息日新月异。特别是中国入世以后,社会生活信息化和经济活动全球化,使得英语已成为我国对外开放和各国交流信息的重要工具。而绝大部分交流和传播的信息是靠阅读这一途径进行的。在做任何事情都讲求效率的当今时代,英语阅读也存在同样的问题,即能否在单位时间内获得尽可能多的信息。在一般情况下,阅读速度和理解是成正比的。阅读速度快,理解率就高;阅读速度慢, 理解率就低。同时,速度与理解相辅相成,互相制约,阅读速度对理解有影响,反之,理解也影响着阅读速度。因为阅读的过程实质上是大脑对文字所表达的内容的反映和理解的综合过程。所以,阅读速度实际上是理解的速度。提高学生的阅读速度归根到底是提高理解的速度。在中学英语教学过程中,要把提高英语技能和理解率同提高阅读技巧和速度结合起来是有实际意义的。 Today’s world is a “knowledge explosion” of the information age. A variety of information-based technical information with each passing day. Especially after China’s accession to the WTO, the informationization of social life and the globalization of economic activities have made English a crucial tool for China’s opening up to the outside world and the exchange of information among all nations. The vast majority of information exchanged and disseminated is by reading this route. In today’s era where everything is efficient, English reading has the same problem of getting as much information as possible per unit of time. In general, reading speed and understanding are directly proportional. Reading speed, understanding rate is high; reading speed is slow, the understanding rate is low. At the same time, speed and understanding complement each other, restrict each other, reading speed has an impact on understanding, on the contrary, understanding also affects reading speed. Because the process of reading is essentially the brain’s process of reflecting and understanding the content of the text. So, reading speed is actually the speed of understanding. To improve students’ reading speed is to improve the speed of understanding in the final analysis. In the process of secondary school English teaching, it is of practical significance to combine the improvement of English skills and understanding with the improvement of reading skills and speed.