Scanning Instead of Reading

Speed readers learn to read faster by moving their eyes up and down the page to find the important words rather than reading left to right in the traditional fashion.  In order to avoid reading every word they practice increasing the rate their eyes move across the page. Effective readers will adjust their reading speed to skim certain phrases or paragraphs depending upon whether or not they see an important word, phrase or concept.  Then, they will read carefully.

Practice Pushing To Read Faster

The single most important of the speed reading techniques available to the person that wants to learn to read faster is to be aware as they read.  They focus at a point above the words and sweep their eyes up and down, left and right until it becomes a habit to scan the page looking for important words, concepts and phrases.  With practice, they learn to focus above the sentences and sweep their eyes in various patterns throughout the page.

Ignore Unknown Words Unless They Are Important

When reading, speed readers often find words that they do not understand.  However, unlike traditional readers, they do not stop and look up the word.  Instead, they try to first learn whether or not the word is important to revealing the main idea of the passage.  If it is, they next try to determine the meaning from the context in which the word is used.

Phrase Reading:  Learn To Read In Phrases

As they read faster, speed readers begin to omit words that are unimportant.  This lessens the number of times that their eyes have to fixate on the page.  Instead, they concentrate on finding important phrases by reading quickly across a page.  With practice, their comprehension rate improves even as they read less and less of the printed words.  They learn to read by recognizing concepts and relationships between words.

Speed reading is a skill; and, like any other skill it takes practice.  Learn to scan top to bottom and elsewhere about the page while hunting for important words, phrases and concepts.  Learn to read faster by reading phrases and ignoring words that are unimportant or that are not understood.  By constantly pushing to read faster than the normal rate, anyone can speed read while retaining or increasing reading comprehension.

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Speed reading is a valuable skill that enables you read faster and increase reading comprehension.  Furthermore, when you learn how to read faster and better hones the skills needed to read any style of writing while being able to retain more of the information in the material.

Indeed, once you learn to speed read, you will be able to skim past unimportant information while focusing on those sections of the material which are more important.

How To Read Faster

Learning to read faster is an acquired skill.  The key to fast reading (while retaining reading comprehension) requires daily practice and exercises in order to increase proficiency.

Here are some reading strategies you can use to learn to speed read:

Time yourself. Time your current reading speed so that you have a baseline against which to measure your improvement.  Then, as you learn to speed read, time yourself once a week in order to gauge your ability to read faster over time.

Force yourself to improve your speed. You must push yourself to read faster each time you pick up the material. One of the most effective reading strategies is to skip over prepositions and conjunctions such as “of”, “and” and “from.”

Practice speedreading every day. Learning how to read faster is not a passive activity.  You cannot speed read only when you feel like it.  You must work at it a little each day.  Otherwise, you will not retain the skills necessary to read faster while retaining reading comprehension.  So, go to the library or pick up a periodical in order to practice.  Find a good book and take time each day to sit down and practice quickly reading one or two chapters.  Test your reading comprehension by paraphrasing what you have read.

Practice good reading skills. Eliminate habits that inhibit your ability to read faster.  This can include subvocalization reading (pronouncing words to yourself) or moving your lips when reading. Do not even say the words in your head.  Instead, try to read sentences and concentrate on whole phrases instead of individual words.

Read with your hand. Moving your hand or finger across and down the page is a reading strategy that forces you to read faster by causing your eyes to follow the movement of your hand or finger.

Do not reread a passage. The inability to reread a passage to increase reading comprehension forces the brain to pay better attention the first time.  In the long run, it will help improve memory while, at the same time, allowing you to learn to read faster.

Read in blocks of words. I alluded to this reading strategy above.  Instead of reading letter by letter or word by word, learn to read “phrase by phrase.”  Interpret the author’s ideas in terms of the phrases, not words, that he uses.

Avoid distractions. You cannot learn to read faster if you are constantly being interrupted by outside influences.  As such, initially, try reading in the morning or before you go to sleep.  Usually, there are fewer distractions at this time.

Commit Yourself To Learn To Speed Read

Make the commitment implement the reading strategies to learn to read faster.  Then, constantly refine your speed reading skills through constant practice, and attention to reading comprehension.

As you strengthen your ability to read faster, you will find that you will spend more time using what you read and less time trying to remember it.

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