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Improving Reading Speed
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| Importance of Reading Fast |
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Anyone can improve reading speed to almost double without compromising the quality of reading comprehension. Most adults read between 200-250 words per minute, but many can easily read 500-700 words per minute especially when reading fiction books or interesting news article or magazine. |
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Once you have the basic vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, you can focus on improving your reading speed while maintaining or increasing comprehension. It is an essential skill in today’s competitive and fast-paced world where you have to absorb large volumes of information to stay ahead in your professional life. We have summarized certain techniques that will enable you to improve your reading speed: |
| Keep the Goal for Reading in Mind |
| It is easier to read faster if you know beforehand your goal for the reading. As a result, you can focus on getting that particular information from the text and skip or just scan the rest. For instance, if you only need to know the main issue of a document, you can skip most of the document and just focus on the outline; whereas if you know the details, you will need to read the whole document. |
| Avoid Back-Tracking |
| Many people have the habit of re-reading a sentence to “understand” it better and this can reduce their speed by a factor or 10 or more. Many times the idea in that sentence is explained in detail later or the idea becomes clearer when you read the whole paragraph or page. Slow readers end up regressing most often and slowing their speed even further. As a result, their mind loses interest and starts wandering around – completely destroying the reading speed and comprehending ability. Force yourself to move forward and not re-read the sentences. |
| Read in Word Groups |
| Instead of reading one word at a time, read words in groups. Move your eyes faster, hold the book a little further, and make a conscious effort to include more words in each group or phrase as you read. This can be improved with reading often – with practice, you will find yourself reading faster. |
| Avoid Reading it Aloud or by Lip Movement |
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If you pronounce words or whisper them when you read, your reading rate is slowed considerably. When doing this, you actually are reading each word individually instead of reading in phrases, reducing your speed significantly. When you read silently, you start reading many words at a time since your eyes keep moving faster as you keep reading.
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| Adjust Your Rate of Reading |
Adjust your rate of reading based on the purpose and difficulty of the material. If the document is technical or unfamiliar, you could read a little slower to gather and understand the new information better. But if the material is easy, familiar, and interesting, you may be able to read much faster by scanning some parts and reading some. Similarly, if the information is too detailed or restatement of previous ideas, you could move over them rapidly, thereby increasing your overall speed.
These techniques along with a lot of reading practice can give a significant boost to your reading speed. Reading different genres of books such as fiction, non-fiction, newspapers, magazines will help you practice these reading strategies and identify the areas where you can work on your reading speed. |
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About Author : Anu Bhave is the founder and President at  - an online tutoring and homework help firm that provides very high-quality personalized, convenient, yet highly affordable supplementary education services to K-12 and college students. |
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