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Visit the site of SelfGrowth.com's Official Guide to Speed Reading Ed Caldwell SpeedReadingTactics.com
Speed reading is best described as a collection of reading methods which attempt to increase rates of reading without greatly reducing comprehension or retention.
We’ve all seem the demonstrations. Somebody is flipping pages on a book faster than a jack rabbit and running their hand or finger across the page. Minutes later, the book was read at 20,000 words per minute, and the reader remembers everything. It’s like magic.
Is this really possible? Maybe for a small part of the population, but I don’t think it will ever work for all of us. But, us normal everyday human beings can definitely double or triple our reading speed and maintain high comprehension.
So, How can you increase your ability to speed read? Let’s start with some basics.
1) Have your eyes checked. Poor eyesight might be slowing you down. Get glasses, contacts or lasik surgery if you need it.
2) Measure your current reading speed. How many words per minute do you currently read? If you don’t know how fast you are now, you won’t know how much you improve. Either count the words read in 5 minutes or use software to do it.
3) Remove distractions when you are reading. Loud music and television do not increase your reading speed and comprehension. If you can’t find a quiet place, try earplugs.
4) If you are reading for comprehension, use pre-reading techniques like skimming the material first. Go through it very quickly without reading everything. You can skim a whole book very quickly. Don’t try this on Mysteries. It might ruin the ending.
5) Decide how fast you want to go. Remember you can only read as fast as you can comprehend the material. If you need high comprehension for very technical material, you’ll have to slow down compare to reading a novel for pleasure.
6) Use your finger or hand as a pacing tool. Some people call in hand sweeping. It keeps you focused. Try to read very quickly using the hand as a pacing tool. Maybe at about 1 page every 10 seconds, or 2,500 words a minute. You’ll have lower comprehension , but try to comprehend as much as possible. Then, slow down to about 1,000 words a minute. You’ll find out something quite amazing. When you slow down, your comprehension will be better than it was before at that speed. 1,000 words a minute suddenly doesn’t seem so fast.
7) Another recommendation is to stop or reduce what’s called sub-vocalization. This is the process where you read word by word, sometimes actually moving your lips or the muscles used in regular speech. However, if you apply an effective system, subvocalization takes care of itself. After all, you don't want your mind to go silent. You want to awake the brain to comprehend the material.
8) Many people also recommend a concept called chunking, where you actually read groups of words at a time instead of one word at a time. Again, with proper training this takes care of itself. Too often people get too caught up in figuring out the mechanics, so they lose comprehension.
9) One method used to increase focus and concentration is to constantly ask yourself, What is this about? What is this about? It forces your brain to gain an understanding of the material.
10) Find a good program to help you along the way. It could be software, a live training class, an online speed reading course. It helps to have a “teacher”. Our recommended speed reading programs are in the side bar or below this video. Use one.
11) Practice, Practice and Practice. You have to learn how to maintain focus and concentration. This is always hard in the ADD world that we live in.
Visit the site of SelfGrowth.com's Official Guide to Speed Reading Ed Caldwell SpeedReadingTactics.com
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