Comment Some techniques for speed reading. (Score 1) 107
There are two types of speed reading:
1. Normal reading at high speeds
2. Dynamic reading
The first one can give you speeds of up to 1000 wpm (words per minutes) but usually around 700 wpm. The average reader reads at around 250 wpm. This technique is simple enough that anyone can do it:
* First, move your finger under each line as you read it. This stops you from pausing or rereading sentences because you think you didn't understand what you just read. 99.999% of the time you _will_ understand what you just read if you keep reading on. And, you will understand it _better_ if you don't pause because your mind has less time to wander. In other words, your mind is forced to stay on the job.
* Anticipate what is coming next. Even when you are forced to read fast (by following your finger), there are still times when your mind can wander. If you are constantly thinking of what will come next, it will also help to keep your mind on the job. It can be a fun skill to practice.
* Practice moving your finger much faster than normal. Then slow down to your normal speed. You will find that what you think is your normal speed is actualy twice the speed that you usually do. If you never give yourself the chance to read at these speeds, you will never get good at it (obvious huh?)
* Don't say the words in your head as you read them. This is difficult to try, so don't. You'll find that when you read at fast enough speeds, you won't have time to say each word.
The other technique for speed reading requires special training such as Evelyn Wood, but here's the general idea (basically what Evelyn Wood teaches):
When you are taught to read, you are trained to focus on one word at a time. By the time you become an adult, you don't even realise that you can focus on much wider areas than that. It is possible to focus on a whole paragraph in one go. The strange thing is that when you're looking about your surroundings, you are expanding your focus, but as soon as you look at a book, your focus automatically reduces itself to a single word (because that's what it has been trained to do). Amazingly, if you turn your book upside down so that you don't recognize any of the words, your focus will expand again, you will even notice things on either side of the book you're looking at. Of course, when you turn your book up the right way again, all you can see is one word...
The Evelyn Wood training course tries to un-train your eyes so that they allow a much broader focus. A broader focus allows you to move down the page quicker, but your brain must also be trained to recognise whole groups of words at a time to keep up with the speed that you're moving down the page. They teach this too. This technique gives you around 2000 wpm (higher if you pratice) which is equivalent to reading a page in 10 to 20 seconds (depending on the size of the page).
I hear that the fastest reader in the world reads at 25000 words per minute and he has is own speed reading course. Has anyone taken it? ("Mega Speed Reading" I think it was called)
1. Normal reading at high speeds
2. Dynamic reading
The first one can give you speeds of up to 1000 wpm (words per minutes) but usually around 700 wpm. The average reader reads at around 250 wpm. This technique is simple enough that anyone can do it:
* First, move your finger under each line as you read it. This stops you from pausing or rereading sentences because you think you didn't understand what you just read. 99.999% of the time you _will_ understand what you just read if you keep reading on. And, you will understand it _better_ if you don't pause because your mind has less time to wander. In other words, your mind is forced to stay on the job.
* Anticipate what is coming next. Even when you are forced to read fast (by following your finger), there are still times when your mind can wander. If you are constantly thinking of what will come next, it will also help to keep your mind on the job. It can be a fun skill to practice.
* Practice moving your finger much faster than normal. Then slow down to your normal speed. You will find that what you think is your normal speed is actualy twice the speed that you usually do. If you never give yourself the chance to read at these speeds, you will never get good at it (obvious huh?)
* Don't say the words in your head as you read them. This is difficult to try, so don't. You'll find that when you read at fast enough speeds, you won't have time to say each word.
The other technique for speed reading requires special training such as Evelyn Wood, but here's the general idea (basically what Evelyn Wood teaches):
When you are taught to read, you are trained to focus on one word at a time. By the time you become an adult, you don't even realise that you can focus on much wider areas than that. It is possible to focus on a whole paragraph in one go. The strange thing is that when you're looking about your surroundings, you are expanding your focus, but as soon as you look at a book, your focus automatically reduces itself to a single word (because that's what it has been trained to do). Amazingly, if you turn your book upside down so that you don't recognize any of the words, your focus will expand again, you will even notice things on either side of the book you're looking at. Of course, when you turn your book up the right way again, all you can see is one word...
The Evelyn Wood training course tries to un-train your eyes so that they allow a much broader focus. A broader focus allows you to move down the page quicker, but your brain must also be trained to recognise whole groups of words at a time to keep up with the speed that you're moving down the page. They teach this too. This technique gives you around 2000 wpm (higher if you pratice) which is equivalent to reading a page in 10 to 20 seconds (depending on the size of the page).
I hear that the fastest reader in the world reads at 25000 words per minute and he has is own speed reading course. Has anyone taken it? ("Mega Speed Reading" I think it was called)
