Featured: Guide to Faster Reading

When it comes to reading, some people do it fast and some people do it slow. Some people comprehend quickly, while others take longer. No matter how you read currently, there are lots of ways to increase your reading speed, which will in turn increase the amount you can read. I recommend trying multiple faster reading methods to find the one that works best for you.

Place Holder Method

I popular method for faster reading is called the Place Holder Method, which works exactly like it sounds. In this method, the reader uses a place holder such as a pen or a finger to guide their eyes along the page. The trick is to keep your finger moving quickly, while giving your eyes no choice but to follow. You may find that you’re surprised how much of the information you comprehend just by following your finger across the page.

Eliminate Sub-Vocalization

What is sub-vocalization? It’s that little voice in your head that sounds out each word as you are reading. The truth is that you don’t need this little voice to understand the text, and it is actually making your reading slower. We can think faster than we speak, so by speaking each word in our mind, we are slowing down the pace at which we can read.

You can eliminate your sub voice by avoiding sounding out each word phonetically, which is what most people do. Glide over the words in the text to eliminate the voice in your head.

Stop Pausing

When reading, most people do a physical pause at commas, periods, semi-colons and the like. This isn’t necessary, and it adds significant time to your reading. Instead of pausing at the punctuation, keep moving and read through them. It will not decrease your understanding of the text, but it will decrease the amount of time it takes you to read it.

By using any of the methods explained above, you may find that you can increase the amount of text you can read in a session by triple your usual numbers, which is a tremendous feat. Take it a little bit at a time and don’t give up, and you’ll be a speed reader in no time.

Special thanks to aubs and broken bells for editing!