Definition: Speed Reading Courses

If you're interested in pursuing a speed reading program, you're in good company. Because of the over-abundance of information that we all have to deal with on a daily basis, speed reading is looking increasingly attractive. In fact, if you can more than double your reading speed without losing comprehension, it could benefit you greatly. It's no wonder that more and more students and professionals are looking for an effective speed reading program.

In order to take full advantage of a speed reading program, though, it helps to investigate the truth behind the claims. This is because some of the claims that speed reading courses make are absolutely incredible, and might well be too good to be true. Consider the following: When we're reading in order to learn - for comprehension, that is - most of us naturally read at speeds of 200 - 400 words per minute (wpm), depending on natural ability and the difficulty level of the text being read. Sometimes, of course, we naturally speed up. If someone is reading an article or book for pleasure, and it's not important to read every words, we automatically slip into another type of reading - sometimes called 'skimming' or 'scanning'. This is just what it sounds like - rather than reading every word, we skim the information, looking for what we want or what interests us. We allow our eyes to travel down the page, and stop on relevant information. This is 'lazy' reading, in a sense, but comprehension is still fairly good for most people - about 75%. The average speed for this type of reading is somewhat faster - it can range from 400 to 700 wpm.

A speed reading program can teach most people to increase their reading speed significantly above and beyond the speed of 'skimming'. The nex thing that most people wonder about is how much speed can be increased - and this is where it gets confusing! Some speed reading programs offer a moderate increase in speed - to about 1000 wpm. This seems reasonable; what these programs are doing is teaching you to skim more efficiently. They do this by using a pacer to keep your eyes moving across the page, or by teaching you to read using your peripheral vision.

However, there are other speed reading programs that exceed these claims dramatically - some claim that they can teach you to read at the truly amazing speed of 10,000 wpm, or even more! Needless to say, experts are sceptical of these claims, though many proponents of speed reading swear that they are true.