Speed Reading

In a world where time is money, speed reading effectively helps a person to understand a text quickly. This skill is essential in an environment where large chunks of text have to be read to increase productivity. Speed reading technique gives you an added advantage in this highly competitive professional world and also benefits you in your personal life.

The important element in speed reading is to understand properly the matter what you are searching in a document. For example, you need to prepare a paper on German shepherd dogs from a large a volume on dogs. While reading you will come across several other dogs, here you should not lose focus and should concentrate on the subject matter you are searching. Similarly while preparing an outline of a large document only scan for those relevant details that is essential in preparing the outline.

Ignoring irrelevant details is a major speed reading technique. Together with some technical tips, your reading speed will increase manifold and this will indirectly help you in your productivity.

Here's an outline of how the speed reading technique works:

Most people read word by word. But on closer analysis you might have noticed that your eyes fall on a block of words. One of the important speed reading techniques is to master to read block of words without going back and forth. A person with poor reading skills will get bogged down on the first block of words and will repeat the same words, which is time consuming. Speeding reading tries to improve the reading skills by improving upon the number of words in a block and limiting the time on each block. If you are in the habit of keeping the text close to your eyes it can hamper your reading speed. For speed reading you need to keep the text a further away from the eyes.

Reducing the time is the next step in speed reading. Some might take half a second or quarter of a second to read a block of words. Through conscious effort this time can be decreased considerably. While trying to drop the amount of time taken, you will notice that you are picking up the information in the block of words faster than usual.

Once you have increased the number of words in a block and have reduced time, next step in speed reading is to get away with the habit of skipping back and forth while reading. The best method of stop this is to use a pointer while reading. Through this your eyes will be focusing on the pointer. Once your eyes gets used to this it will not try to change its focus. After a few days, you can slowly increase the speed of the pointer; you will soon realize that your eyes are matching with the movement of the pointer.

Most people use sub vocalization while reading. They 'speak' the words that are read in their mind. Because speaking is slower then thinking, sub vocalization slows reading down. One technique to stop sub vocalization is to hum a tune while reading.

There are several speed reading programs available online and taking part in these programs will do a world of good for your reading. Through speed reading you will not only increase productivity but also will not miss your favorite articles in the newspaper or magazine due to lack of time.