Today I would like to share with you my three favourite Speed reading techniques. One for speed, the second for comprehension and the third for retention. When we set out to read faster, we also want to make sure that we are comprehending the information better and retain it longer. There isn’t any benefit to reading faster unless we are also comprehending and retaining the information better. Get better at all three and you will have a better overall reading experience while reading a lot faster.
Speed Technique – Make your eyes move faster
Our eyes have the habit of fixating on moving objects. If you were standing in front of me and talking, and someone were to suddenly throw a baseball at us, your eyes would automatically pick up on the moving baseball and focus on it so you could make a quick reaction to the event. That being said, I recommend that you use your finger or a pen and run it under each word you are reading, moving a little faster then you normally would read. By doing so, your eyes will fixate on the moving pen or finger and you can use it as a guide, training them to read faster. Time yourself and see how far you can get in one minute. Most books have about 10 words per line so if you count the amount of lines you read in one minute and multiply it by 10, you will get your average words per minute reading speed score. Even if your book does not have around 10 words per line, you can still do 1-5 minute reading increments and see how many lines you read. You can then try to beat that score by adding a line or two for the next increment. With time, you will find that you will get faster.
Comprehension technique – Read the first sentence of every paragraph.
If you are reading an article, you can read the first sentence of every paragraph prior to reading the entire article to help you get a good grasp of what the article is about. This also helps your brain pull out valuable bits of information about the article so it knows what to look for when you read the article in it’s entirety. Taking a minute or two to read the first sentence of every paragraph will allow you to read faster when you read the article because you will be more confident that you are comprehending better and your brain will already know what to look for.
Retention technique – Work with both sides of the brain.
Each side of our brain is responsible for different functions. The left is more involved with structure and logic and the right side is more artistic. It is important to know this so we can engage both sides to aid in retention of the information. If you draw a picture, you will engage the right side. If you take linear notes, you will engage the left. It is therefore best to engage both parts of the brain when you aiming to retain the information better. The easiest way to do this is to draw a Mind Map of the information that you just read. Please see the image below for an example of a Mind Map. If you do not wish to Mind Map, you can always draw a quick picture with keywords popping out of it. The most important thing here is to engage both parts of the brain.
These simple Speed Reading techniques are easy to implement and are a quick way for you to read faster, comprehend information better and retain it longer. The key is to practice! It is very important that you practice them regularly so you can get the benefits and increase your reading speed steadily. I hope you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my blog or check back regularly for more great speed reading strategies. Also, I’ve teamed up with Iris Reading to offer more training on Speed Reading and related topics, click here to learn more…
About the Author: Joseph Rodrigues runs SpeedReadingZone.com and is the founder of a Toronto based IT business. He is also an instructor for Iris Reading. He credits a lot of success in the world of business to Speed Reading Information.