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Does anyone know what causes people to move their lips while reading.


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I sometimes move my lips while reading. I think I do it when I'm trying to concentrate on something and remember it but I cannot say it out loud (if I'm in public or other people are around). I also do it when I'm not understanding what I'm reading and I have to go over it more than once. Again, if I cannot say it out loud, moving my lips has the same effect.

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Maybe they got stuck somewhere between reading out loud and silent reading in childhood and just never took that last step. My son is *extremely* auditory. Visual enough, but very auditory. He was reading before he was 4, but always out loud with perfect inflection and expression. He was probably 9 or so before he could truly read silently. He sub vocalized for a long time. For him, the info just instinctively went from eyes to ears to brain. Even now, he isn't a fast silent reader, and I am almost certain that the info still flows that way even though he doesn't vocalize it. I think he still has to "hear" it in his head. I imagine he isn't the only person who is this way. Just my 2c.

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I'm an audio/visual person. Is that what they call it? I can not just listen to someone say something to remember or "get" it. I can not just read text for the same reason. I do much better when I read the information aloud to myself. But obviously I cannot do that in all situations. I've caught myself moving my lips. I find it embarrassing sometimes, but it just helps me process better.

 

I had a teacher in a college history course who created tests mostly from his lectures and not as much from the textbook. I had to record his lectures and go home and transcribe the whole thing which took a couple of hours. Then I had to read the material aloud to actually understand and remember it. I earned an 'A' in that class but it was because of a major amount of effort.

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St. Augustine, I thinkthinkthink, was one of the first people to read without moving his lips... I have to recheck out the cds on this. We listened to a program about him for History and what they said was that his time, and not moving lips while reading, happened when people started moving beyond the concrete into completely abstract ideas. IOW, for some people when they read they need to "hear" the words, and some need to actually form the words to think of them.

 

I think it's like a phone number you can't quite remember, but if you grab a phone and dial it, you can remember it. Up until that point in history (according to this program whose name I cannot remember) people were unable to think the words without having some concrete representation of them (forming them with their mouths).

 

The same way a new reader can't read silently just yet, they whisper. Eventually the whispering becomes lips moving and then one day, viola, they read with a straight face ;)

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When I tell the children to read silently for an hour, one of the twins will softly read out loud. I still cannot get the idea through his head to be QUIET when he reads. I guess if he ever figures out how to keep his mouth closed during reading, he will probably move his lips when he reads "silently."

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I read silently most of the time , with no lip movement. if it is something I have to concentrate on, my lips might move. if it is something I am having trouble understanding. I read it very quietly out loud.

this mostly happens when I am trying to help ds16 with his physics. I will be reading through the problem out loud. it annoys my ds no end . he is always saying to read silently. I tell him it is because I am having trouble understanding the question, and My brain is not communicating to me, so if I say it out loud, it will then go to a different section of my brain.

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  • 11 years later...
On 3/9/2010 at 5:48 PM, SquirrellyMama said:

I sometimes move my lips while reading. I think I do it when I'm trying to concentrate on something and remember it but I cannot say it out loud (if I'm in public or other people are around). I also do it when I'm not understanding what I'm reading and I have to go over it more than once. Again, if I cannot say it out loud, moving my lips has the same effect.

Me too.  It helps me focus on something complicated or if there are distractions.  

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