Your speed reading options – put in the hours or read this post.

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Why Read? (850 words)

I have been training myself to read faster for many years now and I have an average reading speed of 300 wpm ( words per minute) with 80% comprehension and a scanning speed of 480 wpm with a comprehension of 45% which can be pushed to around 900wpm if really scanning. However, just recently I have come across a nice little trick that will allow you to read at over 500 wpm straight from the get go with a high 50% comprehension. And yes, because I am a nice guy I am going to let you in on the secret.

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The Basics Of Speed Reading

In short, the science behind speed reading is batching. Like a microcomputer system batches data, so too does a speed reader batch words.

Imagine speed reading is like making delicious chocolate brownies.

Making just one individual delicious chocolate brownie at a time is a very slow process and limits the amount of chocolatey goodness one can stuff in their face. Batching the process however, allows many more delicious chocolate brownies to be created in the same timeframe thus allowing one to get fatter quicker.

Speed reading is the same. Normal readers read every single word and this is a very slow process, like ordering food in India. Speed readers batch the words and read groups of words in chucks which is a much quicker process, like receiving the bill in India.

The brain, like an AppleMac, can compute the information it is receiving far quicker than the eyes can send it. It is actually the eyes that are the bottle neck in reading quickly. In addition the eyes tend to “bounce” when reading and one doesn’t read each work in one continuous line like you would think. They eyes actually bounce forward and backwards across sentences and up and down across paragraphs. You may not realize you are doing this when you read but I assure you it is happening.

It is for this reason that when you start to learn how to speed read you are forced to read with your finger following the words, much like you did when you were 10. As humiliating as this is, it helps to train the eyes to stop bouncing around on the page, which slows down your reading speed.

As one increases their reading speed to start batching words and reading in chucks, first in pairs, then threes, fours and sometimes fives. Very fast speed readers will break entire lines into two sections and scan the pages in only two eyes “bounces” while their brain remembers the word chucks and makes sense of them in the background. This takes time to learn so I have discovered an easier way to speed read at over 500 words a minute.

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The 5 Minute, 500 wpm Super Secrety Secret.

“In any article, publishing, blog post or any other form of written word only read the first sentence of each paragraph.”

It’s as simple as my mate George who still eats the red crayons even though he’s now 32. Try it out for yourself. (Reading the first sentence, not eating crayons.)

It has come to my attention that the first sentence of every paragraph almost always seems to be a mini summary of the preceding section. The rest of the paragraph tends to back up what the first sentence is highlighting. If you don’t believe me try it with newspaper articles or blog posts and you will see that this rings true more often then not.

Now lets take that principle and apply it across a whole article. As an experiment try it for yourself. Write down only the first sentence of each paragraph of any article and blog and then review it. See if you can get the main gist of the article and the major points it is trying to present. I think that you will find that you almost always can get a very good idea of the piece and it will only have taken a fraction of the time to read, equivalent to a reading speed of 500 wpm.

Also, you will probably find that because you are only focussing on a reduced number of sentences you will find  it easier to remember the main points and themes of the piece, far more than if your read the whole article slowly and then tried to pick out what it was saying.

Speed reading takes time to develop but is an exceptionally good tool for the average lifestyle designer to develop. Until such time as you have the hours to perfect your reading average, why not try the technique outlined above and instantly reduce the amount of time it takes you to ingest information AND more than likely improve you level of comprehension to boot. You know, because that would make life at lot easier for you. Right? Just do it ok.

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To Sum Up

Just read the first line of every paragraph and increase you reading speed instantly.

Help Me Out

I give all this advice out for free and so if you like what I write and it help you, please help me out by letting others know. On this site, it has been scientifically proven that by doing so you will become instantly twice as attractive to the opposite sex. Can’t argue with science.