Speed Reading

More and more people are turning to speed reading. They come from all walks of life. They are people who read as part of their work, students, and pleasure readers all have found the many benefits of speed reading. With speed reading your comprehension and retention improves giving you more time and freedom for all your other activities and projects. You can go online, visit your library, take reading classes at your local college. Most colleges today have courses in speed reading.

Our children just like us first learned to read by learning letters and the sounds they make, then combining these sounds to form words. The majority of readers never get beyond this slow stage of reading a single word at a time. With speed reading you will learn to read blocks of material all at once which will increase your reading speed and overall comprehension.

If you are a pleasure reader you will read more and enjoy what you read with greater comprehension. Of course you may just want to read the old fashion slow reading method. For some pleasure readers the choice between slowly curling up with your favorite book is appealing. To others it's the desire to read much more of their favorite subjects.

When taking a speed reading course here are some basic principles that will help you learn.

1. While you are reading there are only about 40 to 60 percent of those words that are vital to understanding the subject. With speed reading you learn to overlook unnecessary words and phrases, leaving you with the core "meat" of the text.

2. When people vocalize as they read "whether out loud or in their heads", that is saying each word, it slows them down. With speed reading you learn to stop vocalizing and start to read faster.

3. When reading to improve your retention try taking short notes of one or two words in the margin. Save the longer notes for the front of the book. Keep your underlining of words short or you will lose the meaning of the text.

4. As you are reading avoid letting your eyes backtrack and don't stay on a word or phrase for long as this will slow down your reading and limit your retention.

5. By beginning with giving each chapter a quick read through, don't slow down, skim the chapter and you will gain a better insight into it's content. Once that is done proceed with reading using your speed reading technique.