by S-C Sterner

Created on: April 27, 2010

Speed reading can be a great advantage for students, people whose jobs involve a lot of reading or for people who just enjoy reading. In essence, it is an advantage for most people.

Speed reading is not a mysterious thing at all. The technique is quite simple and with a little bit of practice most people will find that read a lot faster.

Do a few preparations before each reading session. Find a place which you find calm and peaceful. Make sure you are sitting comfortably and that the light is good.

Always read the front and back cover, the index, the introduction and the conclusion before starting to read the actual text. Make sure you know why you are reading a particular book.  Ask yourself questions about the text and try to find the answers in the text while reading. This will make you feel that there is a purpose and help you to keep up the motivation.

When you speed read it is good to focus your eyes softly on the page so that you can see most of the page in one go rather than one or two words at the time. Do not hold the book too close to your face as this will make more difficult to focus on bigger arts of the text. Do not read the text word by word. Try to read groups of words instead. When you start out it might feel like you miss a word here and there and you might want o go back and read a certain bit of the text again. But do not go back. Most likely you did not miss any words and even if you did miss a few words, you will probably understand the text perfectly well anyway.  Going back to read something again takes a lot of time and chances are that you will lose the context of the text if going back frequently. The brain actually works better if reading fast. As soon as you slow down, thoughts will start to draw you attention away from the text and it will make you lose the red thread of the text.

Make sure you always know where you are in the text by holding a pen, a finger, a ruler or a piece of paper at the beginning of or under each line. Make sure you move whatever you feel most comfortable to use at the same pace as you read. Try to speed up the pace by moving it faster.

Always have a word book handy so you can look up any words you might not know the definition of. Trying to get the meaning of a new word from the context takes time and diverts you from thinking of the actual text you are reading.

Make sure to take a break every 40 minutes. If you read for too long without a pause you will lose your concentration. Get up and move about for 15-20 minutes before your next 40 minute reading session. Increasing the circulation and giving your eyes a few minutes rest will help you read much more efficiently after the break.

Your mood can also dictate your reading speed. If you are in a bad mood it will be much more difficult to concentrate on the text and as a result you will not read as fast as if in a good mood. Motivation will increase your reading speed.

It takes some time to learn how to speed read.  The soft focus technique of how to read many words in one go rather than reading word by word can take a lot of practice. Start out with easy texts and then gradually chose longer and harder texts.  The more you practice the sooner you will learn the technique and the more you read the sooner you will learn to increase your reading speed. Once you have mastered speed reading you will feel it was more than well worth the effort.

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