Education: Various Speed Reading Techniques

Various Speed Reading Techniques

Written by Melvin Ng

The ability to speed read is an important skill in today's world, where - whether we are students or at work - we are often expected to read hefty amounts of materials on a daily basis. As a result, improving your speed reading technique is something each and every one of us should not only do, but maintain. What, then, are speed reading techniques?

Speed reading - repparttar 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 repparttar 109144 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 repparttar 109145 page, but merely scanning through repparttar 109146 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 repparttar 109147 essence of what is being written. The rest of repparttar 109148 information on repparttar 109149 page is discarded.

Although this speed reading technique would seem to indicate that repparttar 109150 reader does not fully comprehend what has been written, in fact studies have shown this is not repparttar 109151 case - majority of speed readers using this technique actually increased their comprehension of repparttar 109152 reading materials!

Speed reading technique (2) - first sentence reading

Unlike speed reading technique (1), in speed reading technique (2), repparttar 109153 reader will read repparttar 109154 first sentence of each paragraph, in order to get repparttar 109155 crux (main idea) of repparttar 109156 idea behind repparttar 109157 paragraph and will then skim read repparttar 109158 remainder of repparttar 109159 paragraph. This process is then repeated on down repparttar 109160 page until such time as all repparttar 109161 reading material has been exhausted.

Using speed reading technique (2), it is generally understood that repparttar 109162 reader will glean enough information from repparttar 109163 first sentence not to be overly concerned about repparttar 109164 information contained in repparttar 109165 remainder of repparttar 109166 paragraph, where repparttar 109167 writer will merely be reinforcing repparttar 109168 notion set out in sentence one. However, this technique does fall-down on one major point - it pre-supposes that a paragraph only has one idea, which is clearly not always repparttar 109169 case! If you find that you are reading material where repparttar 109170 writer has used multiple ideas in repparttar 109171 same paragraph, you may need to adapt your speed reading technique to one of repparttar 109172 other speed reading techniques.

Vocalization - the biggest hurdle in speed reading

Written by Melvin Ng

Very often, when perusing materials relating to improving your speed reading skills, you'll see comments to repparttar

effect that vocalization is repparttar 109143

biggest hurdle in speed reading. Moreover, if you do happen to be one of those people who vocalize when you read, you'll need to overcome this practice if you want to significantly increase your reading speed.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that those of us who vocalize our words when we speed read have not perfected our speed reading skills. Having said that, what is vocalization - and why is it seen as being one of repparttar 109144 biggest hurdles in speed reading?

Vocalization explained

"Vocalization", or subvocalization as it is sometimes also known, is repparttar 109145 practice of pronouncing/speaking words out aloud, albeit under your breath or even in your head, as you read materials. The argument goes that this is a common flaw in most people's reading skills as it is a habit adopted from our formative years, when we were encouraged, by our teachers, peers and parents, to speak-out repparttar 109146 words we were reading. The net result of all this is that we place a limit on our ability to speed read if we vocalize repparttar 109147 words as we read. This is because part of our brain needed to vocalize repparttar 109148 words being read has to be activated.

Vocalization - repparttar 109149 cons

The overwhelming reason why vocalization is seen as negative is repparttar 109150 fact that it inhibits your ability to speed read - it slows you down! Here, empirical observation seems to suggest that those who vocalize are unable to read more than 300 words per minute - and are likely unable to exceed 250 words per minute. Although reading at a rate of between 250 and 300 words per minute would make you an average reader, speed reading techniques should help you to reach at least 500 words per minute. Furthermore, opponents of vocalization argue that rather than helping a reader to comprehend repparttar 109151 text being read, vocalization is a barrier to such comprehension; therefore, vocalization is a hurdle not only to speed reading, but also comprehending what is being read.

Vocalization - repparttar 109152 pros

Proponents of vocalization who argue that vocalization is actually a good thing, base their counter-argument on two principles. First, they argue that most people are able to speak faster than they can read. Vocalization, where you speak as you read, therefore enables us to read faster - not slower. Second, vocalization is a process that involves repeating what one has just read. Thus, by repeating something we have just read we are far more likely to be able to retain that information in our brain than would be repparttar 109153 case if we merely only read repparttar 109154 material. Both of these are strong arguments: they both lead to a logical and persuasive argument that vocalization equals a better understanding of repparttar 109155 text that we are reading.

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