How I Increase My Reading Speed By 300%
Posted by Kagisho in Conscious LivingSep 22nd, 2009 | no responses
Image courtesy of pedrosimoes7
We are fortunate that the internet was created. The internet makes life much more convenient for us and we can get any information that we want by just searching it online.
However this means that we are dealing with a lot more information. Even though the information that we want may be lying out there online but it will be useless if we are not able to absorb it in.
Here is how speed reading comes in. Imagine that you can take in information 3x faster now, does it help to make a difference to your life? You bet it does! You will be able to spend less time on learning and pick up much much more things.
So let me show you how I increase my reading speed by 300%.
Top 3 Mistakes That People Make
1. Rereading
Person A is moving towards his destination. He is moving in a way which he takes 5 steps forward and 3 steps back.
Person B is moving towards where Person A is heading without taking a step back.
Who will be reach the destination first? Person A or Person B?
Definitely Person B! Why is it so? Because all this time Person B is moving forward without taking a step back while Person A is moving forward but he take 3 steps back after taking 5 steps.
It is the same as reading, if you are reading like how Person A is walking, you are not unleashing your maximum speed in reading. You will need to eliminate the habit of tracing back what you had read in order to read faster. What you can do is to use a piece of A4 paper to cover what you had read so that you will not look back on what you had read.
2. Subvocalisation
Reading and speaking out the words physically or mentally in the same time will slow you down. This is not a habit that you can easily eliminate because we were taught to read that way since we are young. However it is not impossible to change it.
One way of eliminating subvocalisation is to occupy your mind with another thought that is totally not related to what you are reading. One example would be repeating 1,2,3,4 to yourself in your mind while reading. This will be helpful in eliminating subvocalisation.
3. Small field of vision.
If you have a small field of vision and you are reading word for word, you slow down your reading speed drastically.
Most of the words in a paragraph are not important (words such as and, be, by and etc.) and we will able to read faster by skipping through them entirely. Being able to take in more words in a glance can help you to read faster.
How To Increase Your Reading Speed By 200%
1. Calculate Your Reading Speed
You will need to know how well you are faring now in order to make improvement. Go to the web and search for any information (around 600 words) and copy it into Words. Your Words program should be able to show you the amount of words in the paragraph that you had copied.
Read through it using your normal reading speed and time yourself with a timer. Lastly, divide the amount of words by the amount of time(minutes) you had spent on reading it. You now have your reading speed in words per minute (wpm).
2. Read in chunks.
You will have to practice to read in chunks. Instead of reading word for word, try to expand your field of vision and read 4 to 5 words (as much as you can) in one glance.
3. Use a guide.
Our teachers or parents used to tell us not to read using fingers to guide ourselves. However that is the way that will help us to keep our eyes focused and not wander around. But in this case, using your finger is not recommended as it may be too big to act as a guide and block out the amount of words we can see in a glance.
Find a pen or pencil which are thin and use them as a guide. Hold the end of it and place the tip on the surface of the book (where you going to read) to guide your eye from line to line.
4. Practice
Speed reading is a skill that you need to practice regularly. Practice it every time when you are reading and you are bound to make improvement. Check your reading speed after following the above tips and see how much faster you are able to read now.
Parting Words
I had used the above tips to help me read 300% faster and it can do so for you too. I believe the above tips are adequate to help you to read much faster but if you are interested in further improving your reading speed, I highly recommend The Speed Reading Book by Tony Buzan. In his book, there are more tips and techniques that you can use to help you to increase your reading speed.
Cheers,
Vincent
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How I Increase My Reading Speed By 300%
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