Double Your Reading Speed Now

Still having trouble going through all your reading material as the piles of articles and books you want or need to read keep building up. I had this problem too, until I found out about a few simple ways to improve my reading speed. You can double your reading speed by just reading about a few simple tips. I will share these tips with you in this article.
First it’s important to know what keeps you from reading at your best speed:

1. Problems with concentration. When you read you easily get distracted and start thinking about the movie you saw last night or the date you have planned for this weekend.
2. Regression. You will probably recognize this one. You’re reading a text and after a while you wonder what it was you were reading (problems with concentration?) or you just think you do not understand what the author is trying to tell you. At that point you re-read the text again in fear of missing something important.
3. Word by word reading. Most…people…read…word…by…word.
4. The false belief that slow reading leads to better comprehension. This one is related to number 3. Slow reading often blocks better comprehension.
5. The false belief that you have to read every chapter and every word. Usually 80 percent of the relevant information is in 20 percent of the text.

Take the following steps to improve your reading speed:

1. Relax. Find yourself a quiet and relaxed place and sit down comfortably. Close your eyes. Breathe in, hold it for a few seconds, and exhale slowly. Focus on the back part of your head and imagine putting your ‘thinking cap’ on (I know, this sounds a little bit strange, but it works) and image your field of vision opening up as you open your eyes.
2. Prepare. Preview the article or book. Find out what the article or book is about and ask yourself what you want to learn from the material you’re about to read. This will motivate you to learn from the text and motivation will help you to concentrate and recognize the information that’s relevant for you. If you decide you don’t want to read the text now, that’s ok too. This part will probably save you the most time, because you won’t spend time reading material that’s not relevant to you.
3. Reading. Now for the actual reading. Try to read a larger number of words at the same time (word by word, instead of word…by…word). Continue reading groups of words in a steady rhythm and don’t stop to reread the previous sentence. Your brain has registered all the words and you will be able to recall them when you need the information. You can use a reading aid to help you keep a steady rhythm and concentrate on the text you’re reading. The reading aid shouldn’t obscure your view of the text, so use something like a pen (I use the pen from my PDA). It can also help to focus on the top half of the letters on any line. Try it out to see if this works for you.
4. Practice. From now on follow the previous steps whenever you read something. A great way to improve your reading speed is to read above your comfortable speed for a few pages (don’t worry about comprehension) and then return to a lower speed. You will notice that often this new speed is above your previous average speed. Newspapers work great for this, because they usually have small columns which will help you to read the whole line of words at once and move down in a steady rhythm.

I’m sure the tips I’ve showed you in this article will help you on your way to double your reading speed in no time. And you don’t have to stop then, just practice using the tips in this article every time you read a book or an article.

Have fun!

Gerber

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