Introduction:
“I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.”
Reading is a skill and you can learn how to improve your speed reading skill. For many people, reading is something they do, not something they love. However, learning and growing through reading makes you become personally and professionally successful. The secret of successful people is speed. They are speed readers and process their knowledge at extremely rapid rates. Practice is an essential aspect of improving your reading speed.
Get ready to accelerate your reading, learning, and understanding.
Benefits of becoming a faster reader:
- You will gain a vast amount of knowledge within a short period.
- The faster you read, the more you pay attention and focus on doing.
- As your concentration improves, you will better understand what you read.
- You can remember the information better because you pay attention, concentrate, and understand more.
- The faster reading helps you build confidence and competence in your reading abilities.
Speed up your reading:
Motive:
The key to improve your reading faster is that you don’t need to read all the pages word for word. You have to make a conscious decision regarding reading carefully, skim, and disregard. If your purpose is to know the general information without details, you can speed up your reading. If you intend to study or memorize, you need to slow down.
Whatever you read, read with a purpose. It means knowing what the reason you read for is. It’s like a goal in your mind. Be mindful in your reading.
Preview:
You will get the background knowledge of your material only by previewing the material. It helps you speed up your reading with less time and figure out the meanings of what you read.
Environment:
Your reading speed will slow down when you are in a noisy location. I always prefer a quiet place to read. Taking control over your distraction and interruptions while reading will help you read faster and usually with better focus and comprehension.
Choose a place where the brain gets to work, such as a desk or table, which helps you read with more speed. A room where the lighting is adequate for you, it should be neither too hot nor too cold. Use comfortable types of furniture.
Physical condition:
Make sure that you get good sleep, are not hungry, are in comfortable clothes, feel well, and so on, then you can read fast. Check this article to know more about self care. Your mental and physical state should be in relaxed level then only you can give full attention to what you read.
Set time for yourself:
Have a clock or watch with a second hand next to you and set a time. Observe how long it takes you to read the passage. Track your words per minute and your reading time. Record your words per minute, comprehension percentage, and the date you did the exercise. This information will help you understand what works and doesn’t work when you read.
Chart the track scores:
100-200 words/min – Slow reader.
200-300 words/min – Average reader.
300-400 words/min – Good reader.
400-500 words/min – Excellent reader.
Once you develop an interest in reading rhythm, you can read for extended periods without tiring.
Use pacers:
Your hand, a pen, highlighter, or a blank white card are called pacemakers. Use any pacer to increase your reading speed. It forces the eyes to move in a directed pattern down the page to help you to speed up. They may all not work for you, but it’s essential to try them all and choose what works best for you.
Be focused:
It is the art of being focused, the ability to pay attention. Focus on the present is the best way to accomplish more in less time. When you are concentrate, you will get energy and curiosity to learn more. You can develop concentration by becoming aware of what distracts you and controlling these distractions.
- Prepare your mind for reading. Choose what to read and decide the purpose of reading.
- Please find out the distractions and try to get away with them. Distracters may be other people, tv, mobile, notifications, music, place, wrong time, etc. Check this article to know more about developing concentration level.
Skimming and skipping:
It means observing the main ideas from a more significant amount of material. While skimming the text, move your eyes as quickly as possible to the words.
It means leaving something unread altogether. You skip when you feel that the material is unnecessary, repetitive, or filler at any point in your reading. A skilled reader knows when to cut. Remember, your job is to find what is most valuable to you quickly.
Screen reading skill:
On-Screen speed reading is the best way to adapt to reading in the computer world. To improve on-screen reading comfort levels, you need to change the font size and style to impact your screen reading abilities positively. Font size should not be smaller than twelve points and not larger than eighteen points. You can also try different styles and sizes to determine personal preferences. Reading all capital letters slow down your reading speed. Use standard upper and lower case letters for readability.
Use fingers:
Place the reading material on a flat surface not balanced upright in your hands. Pick the index finger of either hand. Keep your index finger in the center of the column under the first line of text. Your finger should move in a constant wide S pattern, starting on the right, then going toward the left and back to the right, and so on. No need to zig-zag your finger on every line; instead, move your fingers a few lines down each time you move from one side to the other. Eventually, you will be able to see and read more than one line at a time.
Learn more words:
If you come across words that you don’t know, use a dictionary and find the meaning with examples. Find the opportunities to use the learned words in conversations. Learn prefixes, suffixes, and root of words. It will help you figure out meaning without a dictionary.
Review:
If you want to store the information permanently in your mind, you have to expose yourself many times to the news. To practice, try:
- Please talk about the information, connect new information to known things, apply it, share it with someone, listen or watch a video about them, and teach someone.
- Preparing notes while reading itself helps you to review quickly.
- Do highlighting keywords, color them, circle them.
By doing these, your brain will remember the information better.
Which method you pick to speed up your reading skills.? Let me know through comments!
Leave a Reply