Speed Reading Techniques

To learn to speed up your reading you must practice and understand the various speed reading techniques. The most important concept to grasp, is eye span. This is what determines primarily speed reading and slow reading.

If you read word by word, syllable by syllable, vocalizing in your mind, you are definitely on the slower side. I know we are always told to read to ourselves aloud in order to understand what we are reading, but that's just doesn't need to happen in reality. So, you need to widen your eye span, this can be done little by little, starting to read for example in chunks of a line. So, instead of going word by word, you can go reading every 3 words as a whole.

This way, when you blink, your brain will process the information faster. That's the main technique for speed reading. As you start to practice this speed reading technique you'll be better at reading then whole sentences and lines!

As with any technique, it must developed, you can try to read line by line, but without practice it would not be much beneficial to you. In fact, there are some studies suggesting that applying the techniques wrong and too fast can end up developing dyslexia or inability to read. It's like a workout work yourself up slowly until you master it.

How to practice speed reading techniques?

When reading something to practice, be sure you have the optimal conditions to read. That includes: good lighting, text size, comfort, and feeling good. This way you'll improve your reading speed much faster.

Other speed reading techniques

There are other speed reading techniques such as the Rapid Serial Visual Representation (RSVP). It is Center Text Mode , and the idea is that the more centered is the text to your line of vision the less effort you'll make reading, thus improving speed.

Tachistoscopic Scroll Representation is another technique found in some speed reading programs. This is a method that involves scrolling just like int he PC.

These are simple speed reading techniques that you can begin practicing right away! Remember: start slow. There's no need of going too fast, you have plenty of time to improve! It is a good idea, if you are reading a new book to first go through the table of contents, this will give you an overview of the book and will help you understand its structure much better.

Finally remember that you won't always want to read at high speed. I've found that novels are better savoured slowly. You have the control. On the other hands, there are some hard texts that you'll find reading over and over to fully grasp the content. In either case, always have fun. Learning speed reading techniques is easier this way.