Below we set out some of circumstances under which it may be beneficial to be able to speed read and other circumstances where it may not be so beneficial to be able to speed read:

When it is beneficial to speed read

Essentially, great joy of being able to speed read is ability to take in large volumes of data over as short a period as possible. Consequently, those of us who find ourselves in circumstances where we need to read excessive amount of information in a short period of time; and, importantly, to comprehend that material at same time, will benefit from this skill. Such persons include:

* School students:

School students are ideal candidates for speed reading skills because they are at an age where they can still absorb new concepts and ideas, whilst also having need to have advanced reading skills in order to be able to read lots of school texts;

* College students:

As with school students, college students need to be able to read lots of textbook material in a short space of time. Therefore, ability to be able to speed read is an important and useful skill.

* Work employees:

Those of us who are working "white-collar" clerical jobs certainly need to have ability to speed read as this will cut-down on an otherwise very long day. With almost all of world's reading material being generated in offices, as faxes, memos, letters, reports, etc. being able to speed read becomes more important as time progresses, not less!

* English language students:

As speed reading skills enable you to comprehend what you are reading better, English language students are an often quoted group of people who benefit from ability to be able to speed read.

* Pleasure:

Speed reading - essential elements

Before you start to learn any particular speed reading technique, you need to consider that all speed reading techniques rely on three essential elements:

1. A desire to improve you reading speed;

2. A willingness to give new ideas a chance; and

3. Motivation, discipline and continued practice.

Without these three key elements, no speed reading technique is going to succeed.

Speeding reading technique (1) - Skimming

Almost all successful speed readers will attest to fact that they are a successful speed reader because they have a form of peripheral vision that allows them to see large amount of data on a page and to "skim" what they are reading. In short, speed reading like this means that one is not reading each and every word on page, but merely scanning through material. Using this speed reading technique, every now and then you will come across a keyword or phrase and it is this that will provide you with essence of what is being written. The rest of information on page is discarded.

Although this speed reading technique would seem to indicate that reader does not fully comprehend what has been written, in fact studies have shown this is not case - majority of speed readers using this technique actually increased their comprehension of reading materials!

Speed reading technique (2) - first sentence reading

Unlike speed reading technique (1), in speed reading technique (2), reader will read first sentence of each paragraph, in order to get crux (main idea) of idea behind paragraph and will then skim read remainder of paragraph. This process is then repeated on down page until such time as all reading material has been exhausted.