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Understanding Speed Reading
The best students at school and the top employees at work have one thing in common: They take up, comprehend, process, retain and recall information at much higher rates than underperformers. In simpler terms, they are able to read faster, understand better and remember more. They are able to this because they are speed readers. Because they read quickly (and without a reduction in understanding and retention levels), they are able to store and utilize what they read much more efficiently and effectively.
Some people think speed reading is an innate skill. However, research has proven that people can increase their reading speed through practicing a number of simple yet effective methods. Actually, we all employ many different speed reading techniques- the difference lies in how much we utilize them and at what level. Most of it happens subconsciously. Speed readers are just able to consciously utilize and maximize their reading capabilities. With practice, you can too. Following are some basic speed reading techniques that are common to all of us:
Tidbit:
The phrase “speed reading” was coined by a school teacher named Evelyn Wood.
- Not focusing on each letter to identify a particular word (for instance if you see the word “read”, you read it as a whole- you don’t progress from the ‘r’ to the ‘e’ to the ‘a’ and then to the ‘d’ to make sense of it). This process happens instantly for small words or the ones you are really familiar with. How to Read Faster 101 will teach you how to apply this technique to all words- big and small, known and unknown.
- Not sounding out every word and phrase. When reading, we have all tended to vocalize the sound of what we read- reading to our own selves or “thinking aloud”, if you will. For some people this habit of ‘subvocalization’ results in them being slow readers. While we all subvocalize now and then, we never end up sounding out every letter, word and phrase. The speed reading objective here is to make a conscious effort to minimize subvocalizing as much as possible.
- Spending less time on some phrases than others. Familiarity plays a key part in this technique as well. The more familiar we are with language structure, idioms, word-usage and writing conventions, the less time we spend on basic stuff. We tend to spend more time reading and understanding phrases that are difficult to us. A poor vocabulary is often the reason why we can get stuck at certain points. As you will discover, reading practice (and lots of it) is the only way to truly become a speed reader. The more you read, the more familiar you get with the language and the faster you can read.
- Skipping portions of the text. A good author always does a great job of setting a scene. In a mystery thriller, you will get a detailed description of the time, the scene of the crime, the weather, the surroundings and the setting. But a lot of this description is often not essential to knowing the important event that took place (which is probably a gruesome murder in our mystery thriller). And all of us know this. So when we are pressed for time, we often have a good idea of which sections of the text body to skip or skim through without hampering our knowledge of the important points. Polishing this skill (which implies knowing what to skip and where to skim through when reading) is one of the best ways to increase your reading speed.
- Standing in the way of fully utilizing these natural reading instincts are the speed reading ‘demons’: practices like ‘subvocalization’ and ‘regression’. The next sections of this course will teach you how to greatly improve existing natural reading skills, pick up additional and newer techniques, and reduce the deterrents to speed reading.
