How to speed read

Goals

When you read, have a goal. Find what you want to gain from the material. This will guide you when you read.

“To learn money-saving strategies to help me build my business.”

Scroll through the text, scan the table of contents, significant headings, bold or italics words, etc.

This makes you find more accurate predictions of what you’re reading.

For articles, read the first and last paragraphs, bold/italic words, quoted text, and illustrations.

For books, read each chapter’s first and last paragraph, chapter headings, bold or italic words, diagrams, etc.

This should take 45 seconds to 5 minutes.

Don’t focus on individual words; instead, focus on groups of words. There are two methods:

Focus on the spaces between the words. This prevents you from narrowing your focus.
1. As you get better, do the spaces between every two words, then 3, etc.
Focus on word chunks.
1. Don’t grab chunks at random. Find meaningful chunks.

This reduces speed. Your mind can’t say words as fast as it can see them.

To prevent subvocalizing, read at a pace fast enough to where you can’t pronounce all the words. Or you can hum while you read.

This is the amount of times your eyes move during reading. Reduces this to speed up.

You can improve this by reducing the number of words you focus on and by fixating on words for shorter.

Don’t slow down to contemplate the text — keep moving to the next part.

Don’t go back and re-read parts.

One way to do this is to have a note card and put it over parts you’ve already read.

Using your phone, you can scroll past parts you’ve already read, so only parts you haven’t shown.

Your mind processes peripheral vision 25% faster than direct vision.

Occasionally think about how the details you’re reading relate to the overall message.

“What’s the point of this sentence, paragraph, etc.?”

Determine the overall message during the preview.

Generally, each paragraph has a topic sentence. Find this, and that’s the main piece of info. The rest of the paragraph supports that.

IT usually occurs in the first or second sentence.

You'll forget what you read if you don’t actively try to remember it.

Recall and review what you’ve read. After finishing the book, reflect on everything you’ve learned.

Also, if your mind knows it will be called upon to remember a passage, it will retain it. So you’ll be more concentrated.

SOURCES