SO YOU WANT TO READ FASTER!

Quite frequently, someone will ask me, a former English teacher, "What can I do to read faster?" I tell him or her that he can greatly improve, even double, his reading speed with no loss in comprehension by practicing for 15 minutes a day for six weeks. What follows is a self-administered program for anyone interested in reading faster.

First, determine how fast you read now by opening any book at random and reading it at your normal speed for one minute. Count every word you have read to establish your words per minute (wpm) reading rate. Jot the number down. Slow reading is 200 wpm or less, average reading is 250 wpm, fast reading is 400 wpm or more. A good reader's speed is flexible rather than fixed. Sometimes, he may want to read slowly, especially difficult material, but at other times he may want to and should be able to turn up the speed to 400 wpm when he wants to read a great deal of material in a short period of time. This program addresses this flexibility and is therefore especially worthwhile for high school and college students. So we'll make 400 wpm the target speed for this program.

Second, find a paperback novel which has, on average, 400 words per page. A family member or a friend should act as a timekeeper who makes sure that you read 15 pages in 15 minutes or the rate of one page per minute for 15 minutes a day for the first week (7 full days). It is very important to read every word and to try to follow the story line, no matter how difficult this may seem at first.

For those who normally read at 200 or even 250 wpm, some of the meaning will not be grasped. Do not be discouraged by this because you are reading at a rate you have never attempted before. In due time, as you get more and more used to this new rate of speed, comprehension will increase. While you read, it is very important for the timekeeper to keep precise time and to say out loud, at the end of each sixty-second interval, "Go to the next page." Your job is to keep pace with the timer by reading exactly one page per minute. If you are reading too slowly, speed up, but don't skip any lines. If you are reading too fast, slow down. After just a few pages, you should have little trouble judging and maintaining the 400 wpm pace.

Expect to be uncomfortable during and a bit exhausted after the first 15-minute session but that's the small price you have to pay to undo the inefficient reading habits of a lifetime.

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