Speed Reading Techniques

Practicing various speed reading techniques can have a positive effect on your learning, reading and comprehension skills. Often simple bad habits that we are unaware of, slow down our reading and cause this task to become long and tedious. Certain techniques are easily mastered and will greatly increase your reading efficiency.

Firstly, here are some basic things to keep in mind. Everything requires practice, and speed reading is no different. Set aside time everyday to read and practice your skills for at least 10 minutes. When you have a big load to read make sure you are focused and awake. If you are tired it will take longer to get though the work and at the end you still may not have understood it well enough.

Comprehension requires concentration and to avoid overload, ensure that sufficient breaks are taken. A five minute break every half-hour or hour will also help to avoid straining your eyes.

Many readers unintentionally skip back or re-read a word or sentence that they have just finished reading. We may do this to make sure that we have understood the meaning of that sentence or that we have read the word properly. We don't realize that we do this. Perhaps ask a friend to watch your eyes as you read to see how many times you back-skip! Drop this habit immediately (or as soon as possible) because this is slowing down your reading. To help, place a page or book over the sentences you have already read so that you are unable to re-read them. Soon you will automatically drop the habit.

Learn to read only the important information or words and skip the "filler content". All books, paragraphs and sentences are filled with words that are meaningless and have no bearing on the objective of the writing. Before beginning to read, quickly scan the pages, reading only the headings and bold print information. Some may not even be relevant to your studies which you can then ignore. When reading concentrate on the key words and not the filler information.

Increase the amount of words that you read at one time. We all learned to read word-for-word, but, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, not all words are important and it is possible to read whole sentences and even paragraphs instantaneously. Most people do already read three or four words at a time, now the only thing to practice is to increase that number.

Once your reading becomes smooth and speedier, don't give up! Keep practicing speed reading techniques and push yourself to beyond your comfort level! You will be amazed at what is possible to achieve. If reading is an important part of your life, it may be worthwhile investing in some of the good speed reading books available.