Have you ever felt like you can read faster? Perhaps you want to get the main arguments and idea of a book quickly, or you are struggling with a long list of documents, and they are killing your time. Whatever the case is, it is time to speed up reading.
Basics You Should Know about Reading
- Reading Speed and Comprehension Rate
Averagely, a reader can read 200 to 300 per minute. It is easy for you to achieve a wpm rate between 400 to 1000 with constant practice. Test your reading speed will help you determine a proper study plan.
In the meanwhile, keep in mind the relationship between reading speed and comprehension rate. You might be able to speed through a long script within seconds, but that doesn’t mean you have comprehended the details. Being too eager to pursue a high reading speed may result in little comprehension.
- Environment Matters
Reading is a practice inside. Make sure there is no distraction in your reading area. Turn off your electrical devices, which have the potential to break the precious bunk of time. Find a place comforting you, and take good care of your physical condition. Books should be your primary attention, rather than cold or hungry.
Ways to Improve Comprehension
- Hold a Goal in Mind
Be aware of the information you want. Consideration is an essential part of reading when you are concentrate on non-fiction. You are more likely to pick up the section in a book that contains what you are looking for if you have an idea on the general topic.
- Avoid Bad Habits
A common mistake is to read through reading. Even the pronunciation in your mind slows down the rate. Researches showing the eye movement speed is much faster than your mouth movement speed, causing that the reading-out instinct is burying the eyes’ digesting-word talent.
Don’t stop your eyes in one word; view several of them together. Reading is like appreciating a piece of painting; it makes sense to fixate on detail only when you notice the value of the whole picture.
- Skim
This trick works well when you are dealing with a pile of newspapers or a considerable amount of reference documents. Preview a text by starting with headings and subheadings. Marked and bolded words are signals released by authors to stress valuable content. The first sentence of a paragraph often contains central information.
- Chunking
Chunking means to group words into a short section. Take the risk to forget the beginning and quickly scan to the end of a sentence, extracting a phrase with a length of three to five words. Practice with a statement to go through, looking for words to chunk with an intended purpose.
Nouns and verbs are the keys in most cases. The combination of verbs, nouns, and sometimes prepositions generally suffices the comprehension need. The general point flows out by skipping over some of the text.
Practice Reading A Book
- Set Individualized Plan
The plan here means the amount of text you are going to absorb in a certain period. Determine a specific date by which you will complete an entire book. You can brainstorm about topics in which you have passion. Running a blog website would be terrific as you will have to output by conducting researches among a specific category. To be obtainable, you should engage with books in your list.
- Vary Difficulty Level
The assigned text is required to be suitable for your reading level. But once you feel accustomed to the material, jump out of the comfort zone, varying the types of documents so that your reading ability can improve continually.
If you are leaning a second or third language, a nursery rhyme works well for a beginner. After mastering basics, your favorite novels’ version of the targeted language would help you to up a level. An academic essay can be regarded as the ultimate choice if you are already an advanced learner.
