Tuesday, 9 April 2013

How to Read Faster and Comprehend More

By Tracy D. Olson


The average reader is able to absorb 200 to 400 words per minute. After attaining the skill of speed reading, these rates can double or even triple.However, many of the speed reading techniques do not increase comprehension rates. With the amount of research carried out, there are several ways to increase reading speed and increase comprehension rates. This includes avoiding skimming and other bad habits, increasing your concentration, and preparing for what you are about to read. Furthermore, with modern technology, there are several program designed to help speed reading and increase comprehension rates.
more on [How To Read Faster]


What is Speed Reading? Speed reading was discovered by several psychologists, educational experts and the US Air Force with the use of the tachistoscope. However, the term was defined by school teacher: Evelyn Woods. The term defines the ability to read words at high rate of speed, with or without affecting comprehension rates.

Get a book or novel, whatever interests you, and start reading it. Force yourself to read faster. You may miss some of the words in the beginning. After reading a particular chapter, try to comprehend it. Keep a tab on your reading time. After every chapter, you'll see a change in your reading time. It decreases continuously. After a while, you'll be able to absorb the complete phrase quickly at a glance.

Practice: It is very important to practice regularly when learning to master any skill, including reading. Reading books, newspapers, articles and any other material on a daily basis will definitely help to increase your speed. Furthermore, increasing your reading speed and comprehension capacity will allow you to learn new words to improve your vocabulary.

Skimming is the process where the reader visually searches for the information on the page for clues on the meaning. It might be useful for short articles; however, for large amount of reading that require analysis it is best to avoid this habit. Nevertheless, in the workforce, some readers tend to skim past the non relevant information. It does save time, but care must be taken that you do not skip past the required information. The best way to increase the rate of comprehension during reading is to make you concentrate.

Skim, scan, and review the content. Skimming means searching and reading sentences in the content that give you an idea of the entire text. You can skip uninteresting content in the beginning. In your mission to learn how to read faster, only reading the content faster is not sufficient. You'll also have to develop the skill to comprehend the text in the right manner and extract its true meaning quickly. Set benchmarks when you learn to read faster. Make a diary or excel sheet in your computer and note the time taken for every reading. Try to cut it down every time you read.

Preparing your mind for what you about to read ensures that you increase your comprehension rate. Possibly scanning the index or the summary of the text would give you an idea of what you are about to read. Moreover, if you are supposed to answer a question, make sure you have read the question thoroughly so that you know which information to search for in the text.




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