Tips for Increasing Reading Speed

It seems like every day, we have more and more reading material building up on the edge of the desk. In addition to monthly reports, and industry news we have to keep updated on, there is a constant barrage of emails, newsletters, and of course, junk mail.

It has become a necessity to be able to read faster, and to understand what we read without having to go back over the report. Increasing your reading speed will improve your comprehension. As you read faster, you focus more on the important words, and your brain automatically stores this information for you. When you read word by word, your brain still stores the information, but it also tends to wander away and think of other things.

The first tip for increasing reading speed is to check to see if you are moving your lips while you are reading. Some of us developed this habit in grade school, when we started learning how to read. It can be a hard habit to break, but well worth the effort.

The second tip is to practice the skill of skimming. This means that you are not reading every word on the page. Instead, you skim the page for phrases and keywords that convey the essence of what is being written. This allows you to focus on the important and relevant parts of what you are reading.

Another great tip for increasing reading speed is to read the first line of each paragraph on the page. This will let you know if there is information in that paragraph that is important for you.

Practice focusing on groups of words, rather than single words when you read. This becomes easier with practice. Once you are comfortable with small groups of words, increase the number of words you focus on until you can take in an entire sentence at a glance.

To increase your reading speed, you should read more. This can be difficult- especially if you have a pile of reading to do, and you don't know where to start. Instead of being overwhelmed, set aside fifteen minutes each day to read. For part of that time, consciously make yourself read faster than your normal rate. You will find that you will easily increase your reading speed in a short period of time.

There are many books, courses and online seminars that can help you learn to speed read. Some people find that enrolling in a class with a friend helps to keep them on track, and adds a bit of friendly competition to learning to speed read.

There is a wealth of information on speed reading available on the internet. Ask around, you might even know someone who has taken a class, or used a book that they can recommend to you. It doesn't look like the amount of required reading will lessen in the future, so improving your reading speed is fast becoming a necessary skill.

Why Speed Reading

A common question asked in speed reading circles is whether or not having the ability to speed read is suitable for everyone. A common enough remark is that speed reading takes the joy out of reading. Very often, when perusing materials relating to improving your speed reading skills, you’ll see comments to the effect that vocalization is the biggest hurdle in speed reading.

Even if you are only reading for pleasure, the mere fact you have more chance of comprehending that romance novel if you have the skills at-hand that allow you to speed read should be sufficient to convince you of the value of learning this essential skill. As speed reading skills enable you to comprehend what you are reading better, English language students are an often quoted group of people who benefit from the ability to be able to speed read.

Furthermore, as your retention rates are usually better with speed reading, it is often a good idea that you speed read at times when you have a special need to comprehend and retain the information you are reading. So, when you have a reading assignment and you want to practice your speed reading techniques, you should have a task, a purpose, a clear idea what you need and what you expect to get out of this text. Another key element in speed reading is learning to read several words, or units of meaning, at a glance while fully absorbing what is read and being able to automatically retain its essence for later recollection.

A major key in speed reading is the ability to filter out all the words that have nothing to do with the subject and naturally, there a lot of them. Traditional speed reading programs are based on something that we all do naturally - instead of reading a passage in detail, there are times when we just scan it, letting our eyes travel down the page quickly. Almost all successful speed readers will attest to the fact that they are successful because they have a form of peripheral vision that allows them to see large amount of data on a page and to “skim” what they are reading.

It is generally understood that the reader will glean enough information from the first sentence not to be overly concerned about the information contained in the remainder of the paragraph, where the writer will merely be reinforcing the notion set out in sentence one. While there is truth in the information presented in some speed reading guides about the various strategies of speed reading, these inherent factors can greatly affect anyone from successfully using those strategies or techniques. Lack of concentration or partial/impaired concentration is an obvious problem for speed reading, the effects of the environment on ones reading rhythm and the general tendency of some people to be able of acceptable reading rate only in ideal situations.

Hence, to improve reading speed is to increase the kind of knowledge that people learn in their culture and in everything around them. This means that a student of a speed reading course is going to need to maintain the motivation to learn how to improve their reading speed over a prolonged period. Remember that it is vital to improve your reading speed, but not at the cost to your reading comprehension.

To gain speed and comprehension while reading, it is important that you first consider the Title, subtitle (if any), main paragraph, charts, graphics, histograms, etc. The initial steps should be to test your present reading and comprehension speed using a stop watch.

Once you have mastered the art of reading fast with complete comprehension of any material as you continue to practice, then you can progress to higher grounds of unfamiliar subjects and take up challenges, eventually you will come up an expert speed reader all things being equal.

With practice you will improve both your reading speed and your comprehension.

Ask the Readers: Tips for on-screen reading?

Reader Ace writes:

I'd greatly appreciate if you could post an article about reading long texts (websites, word documents, plain-text files etc.) on-screen comfortably (not having to manually highlight the current row for easier reading and/or not having to scroll) and without getting major monitor eyestrain. I, like most computer users, have struggled with this issue in the past, and have still not found a satisfactory solution so far. Maybe some of your readers can help out here?

Since I suspect that most of our readers spend a lot of time in front of their computers, you've probably all got a lot of experience reading long texts on-screen. Personally, I've found that a good monitor is solution number one; however, that's not always an option. What tips and tricks do you use to keep your eyes happy when you're spending a lot of time staring at your monitor? Let us know in the comments or at tips at lifehacker.com. — Adam Pash

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If you're an entrepreneur looking for some good resources, About.com has a list of blogs that would be worth adding to your reading list.

With more and more people jumping on the business blogging bandwagon, it's getting to the point that there is far more out there than you could ever hope to read on a regular basis. To help you filter that infoglut down to a more manageable level, here is my list of the ten most practical blogs for entrepreneurs.

Keep Reading When Short on Time

Productivity blogger Bert Webb provides a way to keep up with your reading when you've got little time for it.

The first rule of plowing through reading materials is realizing that some material deserves a thorough and precise reading and some does not. Don t feel guilty in not giving some material deep attention if it doesn t deserve it.



His technique looks pretty interesting and (pardon the irony) worth a read.