Dear Grade 6 Champions, Amazing Parents, and Dedicated Teachers,
The Reading Riot 2025 finals are approaching fast! This competition isn’t just about winning – it’s about discovering reading skills that will serve you for life. These abilities are like muscles that can be trained and strengthened at any age.
Why This Training Matters?
For Students: Your brain is incredibly adaptable right now. These visual tracking exercises and comprehension strategies will help you read textbooks more efficiently in high school, make studying easier, and boost your confidence across all subjects.
For Parents & Teachers: This training teaches that abilities can be improved through practice, creating a growth mindset that benefits every aspect of learning.
Your Intensive 3-Day Power Training Plan
Based on the eyebraingym methodology and visual processing research, this schedule combines visual skills training with competition preparation.
Day 1: Foundation Focus (30 minutes)
Visual Skills Training (20 minutes)
Eyegym smooth pursuit Training (5 minutes)
- Use a colourful pointer 30 cm from the face
- Move slowly left to right, following with the eyes only
- Keep your head still throughout
- Benefit: Helps eyes move smoothly across text lines
Saccadic Jump Training (5 minutes)
- Place two notecards 30 cm apart on the wall
- Stand one meter away, look at the one, then the other, only using your eyes
- Progress from numbers, to letters, to words
- Benefit: Improves word-to-word eye jumps
Silent Reading Fluency (10 minutes)
- Read an age-appropriate passage silently for 1 minute
- Count words read per minute, aiming for 200 – 300 WPM
- Re-read the same passage to improve fluency
- Benefit: Frees working memory for comprehension
Practice Reading (10 minutes)
Timed passages with comprehension questions focusing on understanding over speed
Day 2: Speed and Memeory (30 minutes)
Visual Skills Training (20 minutes)
First and Last Word Drill (7 minutes)
- Read only the first and last words of each line
- Time yourself and try to beat your speed
- Use finger initially, then remove support
- Benefit: Develops peripheral vision and rapid word recognition
Number Plate Memory Game (7 minutes)
- As a passenger, memorise the license plates of passing vehicles
- Start with 3-4 characters, progress to full plates
- Say the sequence aloud after the car passes
- Benefit: Improves rapid visual processing and sequential memory
Froot Loop Visual Fixation (6 minutes)
- Focus eyes on the pipe cleaner tip while stringing cereal
- String as many as possible in 60 seconds
- Keep your head perfectly still
- Benefit: Develops sustained visual attention for long reading sessions
Practice Reading (10 minutes)
Increase reading speed while maintaining comprehension.
Day 3: Integration and Competition Prep (30 minutes)
Skills Integration (15 minutes)
Memory Sequencing (8 minutes)
- Create word cards with 5-7 letters
- Display for 3 seconds, then write from memory
- Start with three words, increase to 6-8
- Benefit: Strengthens visual memory for word recognition
Letter Strip Jumping (7 minutes)
- Post letter strips on the door frame sides
- Jump eyes between letters through the alphabet
- Keep your head still, time for improvement
- Benefit: Improves accuracy between text columns
Competition Simulation (15 minutes)
Full-time reading practice under exact competition conditions.
Competition Day Strategy
Pre-Competition (Night Before)
- Get 8-9 hours of sleep
- Eliminate distractions, create a calm environment
- Remember: you’ve trained well
5-Minute Warm-Up Games
- Brain Yoga Finger Switch: Alternate extending pinky/thumb on opposite hands for 30 seconds
- Competing Hand Movements: Point thumbs/pinkies in opposite directions rapidly
- Cross-Lateral Clapping: Complex clapping sequences that activate both brain hemispheres
During Competition
- Apply comprehension strategies (connections, questions, predictions)
- Use smooth eye movements without head movement
- Monitor understanding paragraph by paragraph
- Trust your training
Your Reading Future
Where do we go from here!
You have done a great job to reach the ReadingRiot Finals! However, this should serve as a launching pad for your skills development. Here are a few extra pointers that should help you in the future.
Ace up your sleeve: eyebraingym
Have you completed your eyebraingym course online? This is the fastest way to experience real improvement in developing reading and comprehension skills. Accurate and Effective Reading enables us to act creatively and critically in an ever-changing world. It provides rapid and ready access to new information and knowledge, promoting lifelong learning. Eyebraingym, a South African initiative, has demonstrated that visual processing development and cognitive development can occur through accurately graded, effectively timed exercises within an online system, or APP. You can improve your skills and reading comprehension through exercises and games on Eyebraingym. These outcomes have helped more than 200,000 users, from Grade 1 to College and University students, read faster, think better, and remember more.
Long-Term Comprehension Strategies
Make Connections: Before reading, ask yourself what you already know about the topic and how it relates to your personal experience.
Strategic Questioning: Generate who, what, where, when, why, and how questions. Continue adding questions during reading.
Vocabulary Building: Preview unfamiliar words, look up definitions, and create new sentences.
Every exercise you practice becomes part of your permanent reading toolkit. These skills will serve you through middle school research, high school literature, college textbooks, and career success in any field.
For Parents: You’re Building Lifelong Learners
Your support teaches children that abilities develop through practice and repetition. This growth mindset extends beyond reading into every area of future success.
The Beautiful Truth
Great readers aren’t born with natural talent – they develop through training, practice, and belief that improvement is always possible. Your brain is incredible, your potential is unlimited, and your reading journey is just beginning.
The skills you’re building now will open doors to knowledge, adventure, and opportunities you can’t imagine yet.
Take a deep breath, trust your training, and step into competition knowing you’re celebrating how far you’ve come and how much further you’ll go.
THE READING WORLD IS WAITING FOR YOU TO DISCOVER IT!
Based on the Eyebraingym methodology and visual processing research, every child deserves to discover their reading potential. (www.eyebraingym.com)
