Speed Reading Self-Pacing Methods
Speed reading is not magic nor is it a big expensive mystery. Professional speed reading
classes simply teach a handful of easy techniques that help a person focus his or her
attention better. The eye is drawn to motion. Speed reading techniques put that motion on
the page.
Your starting position is important. You should sit up straight, hold the book down with
your left hand, and use your right hand to do the pacing.
You should already be a good reader before you attempt to speed read. Speed reading
will not help you if you have problems in comprehension and vocabulary. In fact, it may
hurt you to try to rush through stuff that you can't comprehend. You should have the
basics down already first.
Before you start speed reading, you should do a survey of the information first to get a
general idea of what you will be covering and of the type of writing
The Hand
The first method is to simply place your right hand on the page and slowly move it
straight down the page, drawing your eyes down as you read. Keep an even, slow motion,
as if your right hand has its own mind. Your eyes may not be exactly where your hand is,
but this simple motion will help you go faster. Don't start, read a little, stop, read a little,
start, read a little. Keep the movement slow and easy. Only do it once per page. If you are
"left-handed" use your left hand as the dominant pacing hand.
The Card
The next technique is to use a card or a folded-up piece of paper above the line of print to
block the words after you read them. Draw it down the page slowly and evenly and try to
read the passage before you cover the words up. This helps break you of the habit of
reading and reading a passage over and over again. It makes you pay more attention the
first time. Be sure to push the card down faster than you think you can go. Slide the card
down once per page.
The Sweep
Another method is to use your hand to help draw your eyes across the page. Slighty cup
your right hand. Keep your fingers together. With a very light and smooth motion, sweep
your fingers from left to right, underlining the line with the tip of your tallest finger from
about an inch in and an inch out on each line. Use your whole arm to move, balancing on
your arm muscle. Imagine that you are dusting off salt from the page.
The Hop
Similar to the "sweep" method is the "hop", but in the "hop" you actually lift your fingers
and make two even bounces on each line. Each time you bounce, you are making a
fixation which hopefully catches sets of three or four words. Moving to a "hop" method
also makes it easier to keep a steady pace as it is a lot like tapping our fingers on a desk.
Balance on your arm muscle, don't just wiggle your wrist.
The Zig-Zag or Loop
The last method is a type of modified scanning technique. In this one you take your hand
and cut across the text diagonally about three lines and then slide back to the next line.
Now the idea here is not necessarily to see each word, but to scan the entire area, letting
your mind pick out the main ideas. I wouldn't recommend this for material that requires
very careful reading, but it is a way to help you get the general ideas of easy material.
Top 7 Reasons To Speed Read - By Magda
Santos
1. Gather new ideas
Theodore Roosevelt knew how important gathering new ideas was and actually
read a book before breakfast. He knew that reading a book before breakfast
gives you the edge over the competition.
2. Increase your capacity to take on new projects
In our world of information the amount of reading we need to do can be
overwhelming. However, if you read fast you can get to the vital pieces of
information that will make your next project soar.You will have the skill to speed
read through all the material you have available to you.
3. Maximize your ability to produce
With all the information you need at hand you can create more, write more, stay
on top of more.
4. Improve your performance, increase your effectiveness
=Absorb reports, periodicals, trade journals & novels at least 3 times faster
=Quickly screen e-mail, letters, documents & memos
=Review daily tasks
=Master and organize technical documents
5. Concentrate on priorities
Set your priorities and focus on your goals by learning to read critically and with
purpose.
6. Develop your comprehension skill
Speed Reading teaches you how to remember the important information you
read.
7. Finish Reading Faster
You all have lots to do. So the best reason for speed reading is finishing your
work and getting on with all the other things you enjoy doing.
Top 10 Speed Reading Comprehension Tips - By
Magda Santos
1. Clarify your purpose.
A good understanding of what you already know and what you need out of the
reading is the key to reading comprehension.
2. Look at the front book cover.
What information is the author giving you about the story? What does the title
suggest? Why did she use this particular graphic on the cover?
3. Read familiar material.
When you first learn to Speed Read, use books and articles on subjects you
have some familiarity with or subjects you have come across before but haven’t
reviewed recently. Later on, you can challenge yourself with new material.
4. Make Predications.
Can you make any predictions about the story with the information you’ve
already gathered?
5. What have the experts said about the book or author?
Look at the back cover. What are the comments being made by critics who’ve
read the book? What other clues can you pick up?
6. Read the Table of Contents.
It’s an outline of the book.
7. Make sure you review the glossary.
If there are any terms that are unfamiliar to you memorize them.
8. Read the Introduction or Preface.
It gives you a good idea of where the author wants to take you.
9. Preview the book to make sure it’s what you are looking for.
Scan the headings and subheadings.
10. Read the topic sentences.
Remember that the first and last sentences of a paragraph give you the
essence of that paragraph, especially when reading non-fiction.
Improve Your Comprehension and Reading
Speed - By Magda Santos
Today most universities have courses that help students learn to read quickly
and critically. Harvard has a class that has been in existence since the 1940’s.
It teaches students how to read fast with a level of understanding that includes
analysis and evaluation.
These classes are evidence that reading faster does not have to take away
from understanding what we read. Critical reading techniques help
comprehension. They help you decide the value of what you’re reading and
focus you on a purpose for reading the selected material.
Reading critically means paying attention to what you read then coming to
some conclusion about the relevancy of the material. For example, how does
the book or article you plan to read relate to the questions you have about the
subject?
Reading critically, as with most things in life, means knowing what you want and
then going for it. Clarity of purpose, a good understanding of what you already
know and what you need out of the reading is the key to reading critically. In
other words, if comprehension is understanding what you read, critical reading
is going a step further and deciding on the relevance of what you’re reading.
Here’s and example, I was researching the hemispheres of the brain for an
article I was writing for my website http://speed-read-now.com. I found an
interesting book on the subject I wanted to read. The question I was asking
myself as I read was, “Are the right and left sides of the brain functioning
differently, or is the brain functioning as a whole?” There was a lot of new
research and I wanted to be up on the new thinking about the brain.
So, when doing research keep a few questions in mind. How is the text
organized? Who is the audience? What does the author expect me to already
know? What is the author’s background? These questions begin to sort out
what you need and in what part of the author’s message you will find your
answers. These questions begin to narrow your focus.
With these questions to guide you begin looking over the book. First stop, the
table of content otherwise known as the book outline. Give it a good going over.
Keep thinking about your goals and how the author can help you understand
the questions you have about the subject. What is the author covering and what
is she not including? Will this book answer my questions?
The next thing to do is look over the text. Get an idea of how the book or article
is organized. Is the author using a pyramid format? Are the most important facts
in the first paragraphs followed by details? Or is the good stuff you’re looking for
at the end in the summary?
Keep forming questions you need answered to understand the subject. Ask
yourself, “What is the author saying.” Revise your thinking as you gather more
information.
Reading speed increases with the critical reading skill mentioned above. If you
know what you’re looking for it’s easier to find. Remember 60% of the words we
read are structure words. Structure words are words like and, or, the. Critical
reading skills increase your ability to read fast and teach you to notice but not
concentrate on the structure words. It also helps to keep you on task and
focused on your goal.
The structure words will merely become secondary to the meaningful text. All
three of the major stumbling blocks to reading; regression, subvocalization, and
reading word-for- word will be minimized by your ability to prepare yourself
before you begin to read. Good speed reading programs teach you how to do
all the above with games and drills.
I also, recommend that you read familiar material until you begin to speed up.
Then move on to more complicated or unfamiliar text. This way you’re not trying
to learn new concepts and vocabulary at the same time you’re learning to
speed read.
If you don’t want to go it alone, buy a speed reading program and practice
speed reading skills in a systematic and consistent way. Speed Reading
programs give you the added benefit of helping you increase your
comprehension by training your mind to look for key words and chunk words
together.
Summary
Increasing your comprehension comes from searching out the most important
parts of the text. Comprehension and reading speed can increase if you devote
a few minutes to getting to know what you want out of your reading, paying
attention to the structure of what you read, and asking yourself questions about
the material. Critical reading, comprehension, and speed come from your ability
to read with purpose and focus.
Speed Reading Myths and Facts - By Magda
Santos
Speed Reading is one of those subjects that is spun to sound like a tonic that
will solve all your educational ills and grow hair on your bald head for 2 easy
payments of $19.99 each. At times it sounds like a medicine show.
Some write about how it’s a hoax. Others claim it’s the best thing since sliced
bread.
Well, in my experience, of teaching adults and children for 24 years, it’s a little
bit of both. It’s a hoax if you expect to learn to speed read, to comprehend and
to keep the new skills you learn all in a mere16 minutes. It’s a hoax if you’re
looking for a quick fix to a reading deficit, like dyslexia or ADD. And it’s a hoax if
you are a “traditional” reader happy with your average reading speed and are
not a visual learner.
It’s not a hoax if your learning style is visual, for example. There are three
learning styles. They are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. If you are a visual
learner you will take to speed reading techniques with ease and will get a lot out
of the effort you put into it. And it takes effort. It takes practice. It takes time to
master and keep the skills you learn. And it’s not a hoax if you’re a young
student between the ages of 8 and 12. As in most things young students grasp
these skills easily and keep them far longer than us older folks.
Speed Reading is also great for strengthening your reading skills, in particular,
fluency and comprehension. Many people that think of themselves as “slow
readers,” under 200 words a minute, find that the skills they practice with speed
reading help them read with more confidence. It allows them to move over the
page and look for meaning without stopping at every word and hearing it in their
heads clearly pronounced before they go on to the next word.
Speed Reading by nature forces your mind to move over the page and the
author’s ideas with such speed that your mind doesn’t have time to become
bored. If you have ADD like I do, it’s a godsend to speed read. Traditional
reading is so boring I want to weep.
Can you double your reading speed in 16 minutes? Yes. But what’s the point of
reading fast if you don’t know what you’ve read? And to do both you just might
have to spend some time slowing down and getting used to this new skill. My
advice is to take your time and to grow into higher speeds. Don’t rush. The
average person reads at about 250 to 300 words a minute. If you work up to
700 wpm you are more than doubling your speed. Make sure your
comprehension is at least 90%. Then increase your speed a little more until you
reach your goal.
Is speed reading worth the trouble? Yes. Reading is a great tool and speed
reading is a great master tool to get you reading and working on new ideas and
projects inspired by others. It’s also a gift of adventure, romance, and
philosophy. Getting to read more in this fast paced world will open a window to
the wonders of the universe. Okay, maybe that’s too far out, but it is a great way
to learn more about what you love and the work you do.
Someone once said, “If you read two new books a week you are way ahead of
the competition and will develop into an expert in your field. No one else is
reading two books a week on the subject.”
Speed reading is a master tool especially made for those that have a learning
style that is non-linear, open to visual prompts, and ambitious. Download a
speed reading program today and see if it fits your learning style.
Reading Better and Faster
by Dennis Doyle
For most people, it is easy to learn to read faster. Your reading rate is often just a matter
of habit. But to begin, you may need to try to change some habits and try these tips:
1. Pay attention when you read and read as if it really matters. Most people read in the
same way that they watch television, i.e. in an inattentive, passive way. Reading takes
effort and you must make the effort. A wise teacher once told me that you can learn
anything if you do three things:
PAY ATTENTION
PAY ATTENTION and
PAY ATTENTION.
There are some simple methods that you can use to pay better attention and get more out
of your textbook reading time. Different authors call it different things, but many
researchers say that you will improve your comprehension if you somehow "preview" the
passage before you actually sit down and read every word.
To do a preview you:
• take 30 to 60 seconds.
• look over the title of the chapter.
• look at all the headings, subheadings and marked, italic or dark print.
• look at any pictures or illustrations, charts or graphs.
• quickly skim over the passage, reading the first and last paragraph and glancing at
the first sentence of every other paragraph.
• close the book and ask yourself:
• ---What is the main idea?
• ---What kind of writing is it?
• ---What is the author's purpose?
You might not think that you could possibly answer these questions with so little
exposure to the material, but if you do the preview correctly, you should have some very
good general ideas. If you have a general idea of what the passage is about before you
really read it, you will be able to understand and remember the passage better.
When you finally get to the point where you are actually slowly reading the passage, read
in a "questioning" manner -as if you were seaching for something. It sometimes helps if
you take the heading or title of a chapter and turn it into a question.
For example, if the heading of a section in the text is "The Causes of the Civil War", take
that title and switch it into a question like: "What are the causes of the Civil War?". Now
you have a goal; something to look for; something to find out. When you are goaloriented,
you are more likely to reach the goal. At least you'll remember one thing about
the text which you have just read.
2. Stop talking to yourself when you read. People talk to themselves in 2 ways, by:
• vocalizing, which is the actual moving of your lips as you read, and
• subvocalizing, which is talking to yourself in your head as you silently read.
Both of these will slow you down to the point in which you find that you can't read any
faster than you can speak. Speech is a relatively slow activity; for most, the average
speed is about 250 WPM (words per minute).
Reading should be an activity which involves only the eyes and the brain. Vocalization
ties reading to actual speaking. Try to think of reading as if you were looking at a
landscape, a panorama of ideas, rather than looking at the rocks at your feet.
3. Read in thought groups. Studies have shown that when we read, our eyes must make
small stops along the line. Poor readers make many, many more fixations (eyestops) than
good readers. Not only does this slow you down, but it inhibits comprehension because
meaning is easier to pull from groups of words rather than from individual words or even
single letters. Try to read in phrases of three or four words, especially in complete clauses
and prepositional phrases. Your mind may internalize them as if the whole phrase is like
one big meaning-rich word.
4. Don't keep re-reading the same phrases. Poor readers habitually read and re-read the
same phrase over and over again. This habit of making "regressions" doubles or triples
reading time and often does not result in better comprehension. A single careful, attentive
reading may not be enough for full comprehension, but is often more effective than
constant regressions in the middle of a reading. It is best to work on paying closer
attention the first time through. Do a preview first before the careful reading and try the
tips I mentioned above. You'll remember better without the rereading.
5. Vary your reading rate to suit the difficulty and type of writing of the text. Poor
readers always read at the same slow rate. An efficient reader speeds up for easier
material and slows down for the hard. Some things were not meant to be read quickly at
all. Legal material and very difficult text should be read slowly. Easier material and
magazines and newspapers can be read quickly. Poetry and plays were meant to be
performed, and if not acted out, then at least, spoken out loud orally. This obviously will
conflict with good speed reading method which forbids vocalization. Religious writings
and scripture were originally written to be recited and listened to by an audience which
was likely to be intelligent, but illiterate. The "fun" of poetry, plays, or prayer is not
really experienced if you "speed read" the text.
TIPS FOR IMPROVING YOUR READING
SPEED
The purpose of this section is to teach you how to increase you reading speed.
Shortly we will be adding a section for reading BETTER as opposed to FASTER.
We all have a capacity for reading much faster than we typically do. Our reading
speed changes as we go through life. When we are in high school, we go through
about two hundred words a minute. We get to college and, because we have to read
faster due to more time constraints and a much greater amount to read, we read
faster. Most people in college average about 400 words per minute. Then we get out
of college, and now we don't have to read so fast. There are no longer time
constraints, and we can read slow and easy. We find ourselves dropping back down
to about 200 words per minute.
Think of reading like you do a muscle, the more you read, the better you get at it,
the faster you're going to read. And we have a great capacity for reading faster. We
aren't even scraping the surface of how fast we can read. You see, we have
1,000,000,000,000 brain cells. In fact, the inner connections, the synapses, in our
mind are virtually infinite. It has been estimated by a Russian scientist that the
number of synapses we have would be one followed by 10 million kilometers of
zeros. Our physical capacity for reading is beyond our comprehension. Our visual
unit has the capability to take in a full page of text in 1/20 of a second. If we could
turn the pages fast enough, our brain could process it faster than our eyes can see it.
If we could turn those pages fast enough, our eyes have the capacity to read a
standard book in six to twenty-five seconds depending on the length of the book. We
could take in the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in one hour. So reading 700 - 1,000
words a minute is easily within our reach.
The key to improving our speed is to SIGHT READ, and that's what we are going to
show you how to do. We are going to start being pure sight readers. Obstacles get in
our way, however. What do we mean by obstacles? Well, these are things that
impede us from reading faster.
REGRESSIONS are the most wasteful. Regressions are going back over words. You
can call it back-skipping if you want. You go back over words you previously read.
People do it for two reasons. Initially we read it to clarify the meaning of what we're
reading. We want to be sure of the words we read as we go along. In our early years
in school, when we were first taught - incorrectly - to "read slowly and carefully," it
became easy to go back over words.
Well, this not only slows you down, it causes you comprehension problems. For
instance, lets say you have a sentence, "The man jumped over the log." Well, if you
back-skip, you read that passage like this: "The man jumped," "the man . . .
jumped. . . over the log," "jumped over the log." So, what your brain is processing,
"The man jumped," "the man jumped," "jumped over the log." Our brain is used
to processing our flaws, so the brain thinks, "OK, I know what this clown is saying,
"The man jumped over the log." But this takes time to sort out. And it's confusing.
Think how much easier it would be if you simply took the sentence in in one sight,
"The man jumped over the log." There's no confusion there. Then you move on to
the next phrase. Regressing or back-skipping is the most harmful thing we do to
slow our reading speed.
Our second obstacle is that we have BAD HABITS that we pick up. Bad habits
manifest themselves in a number of ways. For one, you've got people who have
MOTOR habits as they read. These are the people who are tapping a pencil when
they read, tapping a foot when they read, moving a book, flicking their hand, etc. If
they're sitting next to you, they drive you nuts. But they are the people who have to
be moving while they read.
Some may even move their lips. If they do that, they're kind of edging over into
another bad habit where we find AUDITORY readers. This is the bad habit that we
have that is the hardest to drop. Auditory reading is difficult to beat because we are
used to reading and hearing the words in our minds. Some people even go so far as
to mumble the words. You can see their lips moving sometimes, or you can even
hear a guttural growl as they go through the words.
The other obstacle are the FIXATIONS. Fixations are the actual stops or pauses
between eye-spans when the eye is moving to its next fixation point. We can't see
while the eye moves so you do need the fixation points to see. The problem is, most
people fixate word by word by word. They stop their eyes on each separate word.
The fixations slow you down because you are stopping on each word.
The problem that comes up here is this that, like the other obstacles, it impedes
concentration and comprehension as well. The paradox with reading slowly is that it
really hurts your concentration.
Research has shown a close relation between speed and understanding. In checking
progress charts of thousands of individuals taking reading training, its been found
that in the vast majority of cases, that an increase in speed reading rate has also
been paralleled by an increase in comprehension. The plodding word by word
analyzation actually reduces comprehension.
In this day and age, our brains are used to constant stimulation. Television, radio,
even people talking to you, provide constant stimulation. So when we are reading
along slowly and carefully, it's kind of like watching a movie and we encounter a
slow motion scene. The slow motion scene is kind of interesting at first because the
movie has been moving along at a rapid clip and now we have a change of pace.
We've got the slow motion scene of the guy getting shot or the couple running across
to each other across a field, and the mind initially says, "Oh, this is cool. This is
something different." After a while we get a little impatient and we're ready for the
guy who got shot to hit the ground, or the couple who are running across the field to
finally get to each other. We start thinking about other things..weve lost our focus
on the movie.
The brain does the same thing when we read. The brain is getting all the stimulation
it normally gets, then we hit this patch where you're reading slowly. And boom, the
brain says, "I don't like this. I think I'm going to start thinking about something
else." And the reader starts thinking about the date they had Saturday night or the
date they hope to have Saturday night. And therefore, you've got another
impediment to comprehending the reading correctly.
OK, what do we do? Well, there are several things we are going to do to increase
reading speed. First of all. we are going to increase the EYE SPAN. Eye span is the
number of words that you take in as you look at the words. In other words, if my
eye span is just one word, I am going to move from word to word to word. If my eye
span is two words, I am going to move along twice as fast. If my eye span is three
words, three times as fast. If I am moving along in phrases, I'm flying along pretty
good.
That's where you increase the rate of eye span. You also want to learn to work in
THOUGHT UNITS. Thought units help you move faster. This is where you group
the words according to context. For instance, lets say you have, "He said
something." It's easy to put that in a phrase, then you move to the next phrase. If I
had this sentence, "It's safe to say that almost anyone can double his speed of
reading while maintaining equal or higher comprehension." If I want to read that in
phrases, "It's safe to say that almost anyone.......can double his speed........of reading
while maintaining.......equal or even higher comprehension." You move much faster
that way.
So, we are going to increase the number of words we see and we are going to group
them according to context. One of the key things that we are also going to work on is
RETURN EYE SWEEP. When you get to the end of the sentence or the end of the
line on the written page, if your eye meanders back to the other side, you have a
chance to pick up words. If you're picking up words and you're sight reading, that
can be confusing. So you want to dramatically, quickly, forcefully, go from the end
of one line to the beginning of the next one. Using a fingertip or pen as a pointer is a
great way to quickly and directly to the next line.
The other thing that helps us increase our speed is CONFIGUATION. As you read
faster and faster, you've got to learn to rely on your increased recognition of how
words are configured, how they look, as you do it. In other words, "material" looks
different than "response". "Recognition" looks different than "perceptual". The
words have visual configurations. As you learn to read faster and faster you learn to
pick up on the configurations and, as you do better and better, your skills at this
improve with practice.
So, we are going to have no REGRESSIONS, no VOCALIZATIONS, and increased
EYE SPAN. That's the way to true sight reading. How do we do this?
First, we avoid the problem areas. We avoid the limited eye-span by expanding the
number of words that we take in. We get rid of regressions and we get rid of the
return eye sweep problem by using a pointer. You can use a pen, a pencil, even your
finger. That gives you a point of focus for your eyes. It helps you focus on the page,
and you move faster because you can dictate how fast you are moving across the
page. Your eye will follow your finger, or pen, or pencil.
Absolutely stay away from the vocalizations. You have got to be a sight reader. You
have got to read fast enough so that you don't have time to hear the words. This way
you are comprehending simply with your eyes.
You also need to keep in mind that you don't always read at the same speed. If
you've got a car that will go 120 miles per hour, you're not going to drive that care
120 miles per hour in a shopping center. You'd get killed and get a heck of a ticket.
But you may, on a highway when you are passing a car, get it up to a high speed.
When you are in that shopping center, you are going to be driving about 30 miles
per hour.
It's the same thing with reading. This is specifically addressed in our Better Reading
section. But you must learn that you speed read in certain areas and there are other
areas that may be particularly dense, that may have something that's particularly
confusing to you, when you will need to slow down and read in shorter phrases,
smaller groupings of words so that you can comprehend it clearly. It may be a
particularly dense passage where each word has great deal of meaning. It may be
even an unusual or specific word.
Let's look at what we've got to do to practice it. The big step here is to simply read
faster. It sounds like such a simple statement, it almost sounds stupid. But it's what
you have to do. You have to focus on "I'm going to read faster," first.
Comprehension comes later. Practice reading without a great concern for
comprehension. In clinical terms, we call this the comprehension lag. It takes the
mind as many as ten to fifteen days to adapt to the new reading rate.
You are going to go through periods, practice periods, you can't use on school
books, but it's a practice period where you are simply adapting to reading that
much faster. Comprehension lags for a while but when it catches up it makes a
stunning difference.
A good place to practice this is magazines or newspapers. They have narrow
columns that almost make a perfect thought unit. You can almost go straight down
the column, taking that finger and puttting it in the middle of the column and
moving it straight down the page. You will be stunned how soon you will be able to
improve and comprehend what you are reading that way. You find that it's quick.
It's easy reading.
TIPS FOR INCREASING READING SPEED
As our eyes move across the page they make a series of jerky movements. Whenever they
come to rest on a word that is called a fixation. Most people fixate once on each word
across a line of print.
In order to make our speed increase we must take in more words with each fixation,
rather than make our eyes move faster.
1. Try to avoid focusing on every word, but rather look at groups of 2 to 3 words.
For instance, this sentence could be grouped in this manner:
for instance / this sentence / could be grouped / in this manner
2. Work on vocabulary improvement. Familiarize yourself with new words so you
don't get stuck on them when you read them again.
3. If you find yourself moving your lips when reading, force yourself to read faster
by following (1.) above so that you can no longer move your lips.
4. Read more! 15 minutes a day of reading an average size novel equals 18 books a
year at an average reading speed!
5. Determine your purpose before reading. If you only need main ideas, then allow
yourself to skim the material. Don't feel you must read very word.
6. Spend a few minutes a day reading at a faster than comfortable rate (about 2 to 3
times faster than your normal speed). Use your hand or an index card to guide
your eyes down the page. Then time yourself reading a few pages at your normal
speed. You'll find that often your normal reading speed will increase after your
skimming practice.
7. If you have poor concentration when reading, practice reading for only 5 - 10
minutes at a time and gradually increase this time.
8. There are several books on increasing reading speed available in most bookstores.
If you are serious about increasing your rate you may want to work systematically
through one of these books.
Reading Faster
by Ron Kurtus (revised 10 January 2001)
Students often must read and comprehend a tremendous amount of material. Being
able to read rapidly is an important skill that will make schoolwork easier, as well as
help you advance in your career. Most speed-reading methods are based on skim
reading first and in reading groups of words. It takes discipline and a mind-set to
become a super reader.
Questions you may have about speed-reading include:
• How important is reading fast?
• How is skim reading used?
• How do you read groups of words?
This lesson will try to answer your questions and give you some tips on how to
improve your reading speed. There is a mini-quiz near the end of the lesson.
Speed is important
It certainly is more enjoyable to be able to read something rapidly, instead of
spending what seems like forever struggling through the words.
Students and workers improve
Besides the enjoyment factor, students need to get through a lot of reading material
in as fast a time as possible. Efficient reading skills will help them in their schoolwork
and help to improve their grades.
Workers must read reports, as well as research material, for their jobs. If they can
read faster, with greater comprehension, their chance of a raise and a promotion is
increased. Note that top executives usually have rapid-reading skills.
Improves comprehension
Although it is difficult to speed-read a complex chapter in a Mathematics book, using
speed-reading techniques do help to improve your comprehension. This is especially
true when you have to read a large amount of material that can numb your brain.
Skim reading
Some speed reading methods have you first skim-read the material and then read it
over a second time more carefully, but yet still at high speed. In skim reading you
often just scan through the material, letting your eyes catch key words, that give
you the crux of the written material.
Skim several times
When reading extensive material, you can first skim over the chapter and section
titles to give you an idea of when the material is about. Then quickly scan through
the material again to get a better idea of the topic. Finally, you read the assignment,
but still reading rapidly.
Read first sentence
Since often the first sentence of each paragraph states the main idea of that
paragraph, while the other sentences elaborate on that idea, you can skim read by
just reading the first sentences. In some cases, you can get enough information by
only reading the first sentence from each paragraph.
Unfortunately, some writers make their paragraphs so long, that they have several
ideas in them, and others stick the important sentences in the middle. In such cases,
you can't use the first sentence method effectively.
Complex reading
With some complex reading--like Mathematics--you should still skim over the
material, quickly looking at section titles and the equations and formulae. After you
get an idea of what the material is about and where it is going, you can read it more
carefully. Since you often may have to work out problems with a pencil, obviously
your reading speed will not be as high as other type of reading.
Grouping words
Most people read one word at a time, saying the word to themselves. This is a slow
way of doing the task, especially when your mind is capable of processing
information at a much higher rate.
Look at groups of words
One of the primary tricks in speed-reading is to look at phrases and groups of words
instead of individual words. Instead of reading word-by-word, you read in chunks of
information. You don't have to say the word to understand what it means.
Practice with newspaper
Try reading several words, a phrase, or even a sentence at a time. A good way to
practice this is to read newspaper articles by scanning down the column, digesting all
the words across, instead of reading each word at a time. A newspaper column
usually has 4 or 5 words per line, and you should be able to process all of them at
once.
This method is one of the best for getting used to reading phases instead of words.
Just practicing reading this way should noticeably increase your speed.
In conclusion
If you think about reading faster, you will make an effort to pick up the pace.
Reading speed is something you must work on and concentrate on until it becomes a
habit.
Being able to read and comprehend the material at high speed is a skill that is
worthwhile for students and people in business. Most methods involve reading
chunks of information so that you are skimming or scanning the book or document.
