Speed Reading

Speed reading is not magic. It is a skill that can be learned and it mostly involves breaking the poor reading habits that you have developed since school. Simply becoming a faster reader is not the point either: You want to become a more efficient reader.

Breaking Poor Reading Habits

Habit: Reading word by word

This is how children are taught to read, but when you concentrate on separate words you often miss the overall concept of what is being said. People who read each word as a distinct unit comprehend less than those who read faster by "chunking" words together in blocks.

Solution:
Speed reading involves reading blocks of words at one time and comprehending the meaning of the word group. Think of viewing a digital image. There are millions of pixels that only make sense when they are seen together. In the same way, our brains can comprehend ideas better when it takes in a group of words at one time.

Practice expanding the number of words that you read at a time. You may also find that you can increase the number of words read by holding the text a little further from your eyes. The more words you can read in each block, the faster you will read!

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Habit: Sub-vocalization

This is the habit of pronouncing each word in your head as you read it. Most people do this to some extent or another. When you sub-vocalize you "hear" the word being spoken in your mind. This takes much more time than is necessary because you can comprehend a word much quicker than your can say it.

Solution:
To turn off the voice in your head you have to first acknowledge that you do it (how did you read the first part of this article?) and then you have to practice not doing it. When you sit down to read, tell yourself that you will not sub-vocalize. You have to practice and practice this until this bad habit is erased. Reading blocks of words also helps as you can't "say" a block of words.

Habit: Inefficient eye motion

Slow readers tend to focus on each word and work their way across each line. The eye can actually span about 1.5 inches at a time which, for an average page, encompasses four or five words. Related to this is the fact that most readers don't use their peripheral vision to see words at the ends of the line.

Solution:
Soften your gaze when you read. By relaxing your face and expanding your gaze, you will begin to see blocks of words instead of each word as distinct unit. When you get good at this your eyes will drift across the page. When you get close to the end of the line, let your peripheral vision take over to see the last set of words. This way you can quickly scan across and down to the next line.

Habit: Regression

This is unnecessary re-reading of material. Sometimes people get in the habit of skipping back to words they just read and other times they jump back a few sentences just to make sure that they read something right. When you "skip back" like this you lose the flow and structure of the text and your overall understanding of the subject decreases.

Solution:
Be very conscious of regression and do not allow yourself to re-read material. To reduce the number of times that your eyes skip back to a previous sentence, run a pointer along the line as you read. This could be a finger, or a pen or pencil. Your eyes will follow the tip of your pointer, smoothing the flow of your reading. The speed at which you read using this method will largely depend on the speed at which you move the pointer.

Habit: Poor Concentration

If you've tried to read while the TV is on, or when there is lots of activity around you, you know how hard it is to concentrate on one word, let alone on many sentences strung together. Reading has to be done in environment where external distractions are at a minimum.

Solution:
Stop multitasking while reading. If you are attempting to speed read, this is particularly important because when you use the speed reading techniques of chunking blocks of words and ceasing to sub-vocalize, you may have "read" one or two pages before you realize you haven't understood something properly. Pay attention to internal distractions as well. If you are rehashing a heated discussion you had earlier, or wondering what to make for dinner, this will also limit your ability to process more information.

Habit: Approaching reading linearly

We are taught to read across and down, taking in every word, sentence, paragraph, page, and chapter in order. When you do this, though, you pay the same attention to supplementary and superfluous material as you do to the critical portions. There is usually far more information written than you actually need to understand.

Solution:
Stop reading a book like you would listen to a speech. Scan the page for headings and look for the bullet points or things in bold. There is no rule saying you have to read in the order the author presents the information. Do a quick scan of the page and decide quickly what is necessary and what isn't. Skim over the fluff and pay attention to the key material.

As you read, look for the little extras that authors add to make their writing interesting and engaging. If you get the point, there is no need to read the example, anecdote, or metaphor. Similarly, decide what you need to re-read as well. It is far better to read the one critical paragraph twice than to read all eight paragraphs describing that same concept.


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