Can Anyone Improve Their Reading Speed?

Written by Melvin Ng


A question that is often asked of speed reading trainers is whether or not anyone can improve their reading speed. The simple, straightforward, answer to this question is “yes”, they can. However, this is not to say thatrepparttar leaner will not have to provide some input of their own: after all, all learning is a form of trade-off. In this regard,repparttar 109142 following are seen asrepparttar 109143 four essential elements that a student of speed reading will need to bring with them if they want to learn to speed read:

1. A desire to improve

Strange as it may seem, not everyone is willing to accept that there is a better method of reading thanrepparttar 109144 one currently being used byrepparttar 109145 student. Most likely,repparttar 109146 student has learnt their current reading method at a very formative age – probably on their mother’s knee. As a result, it can be hard to try and convince students to adapt to new methods of reading, a skill we see as so fundamental, none of us is really willing to accept that we do not know how to do it, and do it well, already. Therefore, a real desire to improve your reading speed isrepparttar 109147 first essential element you’ll need to bring with you to class.

2. A willingness to accept new ideas

Another concept that we learn in our formative years is to sound out our words (technically called subvocalize) as we read them. In part this is done so that we learn how to pronouncerepparttar 109148 word, not read it! However, in later life this habit can be extremely difficult to break. But, if you want to be able to improve your reading speed, it is a habit you will have to break.

In addition, most of are taught at some stage in our life that if we have not comprehended, or understood, what we have just read, to go back and rereadrepparttar 109149 passage. Again, this is a habit which speed reading courses see as a no-no. You will have to discard it if you want to improve your reading speed. However, it’s not easy to do. Finally, whichever ofrepparttar 109150 speed reading methodologies you select to learn, it is likely that you’ll need to learn to read large chunks of information atrepparttar 109151 same time, or to skim read. As children we are taught that these practices are not good for us – we will likely miss information, or misinterpret it.

Why would people want to read faster?

Written by Melvin Ng


A question often asked is why people would want to read faster? Without wishing to be flippant,repparttar answer to this question is essentially two-fold:

(a) because they want to; and

(b) because they need to.

Below we will examine some ofrepparttar 109141 reasons why someone may want to read faster and, more pertinently, why they may need to read faster. To conclude, we'll also look at some ofrepparttar 109142 practices that can be adopted so that you can actually read faster.

(a) Why you would want to read faster

When we are children, adults try to relay to us that reading is a pleasure that we should take care and time over. We might also be told that in order to fully understand what we are reading, we need to take time overrepparttar 109143 written word - save we may misconstrue whatrepparttar 109144 author intended. When we reach adolescence, however, we find we're in for a rude awakening!

Reading is for educational purposes: and if we want to improve our minds, we had better be prepared to do a lot of it!

The need to read lots of information and data is probablyrepparttar 109145 biggest reason why we want to haverepparttar 109146 skills to read faster. There are simply not enough hours in a day for us to haverepparttar 109147 luxury of reading everything at a leisurely pace; we must pushrepparttar 109148 frontiers of our reading speed and ever increase this as we get older. To do otherwise means that we have to spend copious amounts of time reading text that could have been utilized in ways (possibly) more enjoyable than reading - such as spending time withrepparttar 109149 family, or watching television.

(b) Why people need to read faster

The reason why people need to read faster is actually tied-up withrepparttar 109150 reason why people want to read faster -repparttar 109151 sheer amount of information that we need to read these days.

Although sales of novels have fallen year-on-year for over a generation now,repparttar 109152 various different mediums we have for reading have increased. Indeed,repparttar 109153 Internet alone provides us with a reading medium that we would unlikely be able to complete even if we spendrepparttar 109154 rest of our life trying to do it!

Moreover, today, more and more of us are required to read very in-depth, complex, reports as part of our day-to-day work: for which we simply do not haverepparttar 109155 luxury of a couple of days. Work related reading material generally means having to turnaroundrepparttar 109156 reading time as quickly as possible. It is usually for this reason that those of us who have not undertaken a speed reading course byrepparttar 109157 time we enterrepparttar 109158 workforce rush out shortly thereafter to do so.

(c) Methods of reading faster

If you find that you are one of those people who would like to be able to read faster,repparttar 109159 following are some useful tips that you can adopt in your pursuit of speed reading:

(i) Preparation

A large part of being able to read faster lies on your preparation. Here, before you start to read that thick business report, give itrepparttar 109160 once over (i.e., skim read it), see how longrepparttar 109161 report is, try to grasprepparttar 109162 main points being conveyed inrepparttar 109163 report - you can usually do this by looking atrepparttar 109164 headings, subheadings and index - then take a deep breath and plunge into your speed reading mode. When you adopt some ofrepparttar 109165 other methods listed below, you'll usually find that knowing a little of what to expect next will greatly enhance your ability to read faster.

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