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The Growing Importance of Speed-reading and Efficient Reading
By Intelligence Understood
As I am sure each and every one of you already knows, our society is now founded on information. Most of the information that floods us each is still presented to us in a written format. The mediums that are used to deliver information to us have changed drastically in the last 20 or so years. We now get a tremendous amount of our information online or through E-Mails. The speed in which information is now transferred between people is one of the single largest contributing factors contributing to our information overload.
Unfortunately, most of us have not increased our reading and retention rates to match the increased speeds in which information is delivered. In fact some of us are still horrible slow readers, and we find that we are unable to keep up with our daily reading load.
Here are some quick tips that may help you to understand why your reading speeds and retention rates are not as high as they should be. If you have trouble reading at a reasonable speed and retaining what you read, you may be fixating. Fixation in reading is when your eye stops on a letter or word while you are reading. You might be interested to know that the average person fixates about four times per line on each page of a book.
The good news is that your brain does 'see' and process the information beyond the edges of your fixated focus. If you practice, you can find a rhythm and flow in reading, and read at a continuous pace. With average vision, you can see and process ten to twelve letters at a time.
It may help for you to think of reading as a sort of 'pick and choose' activity, where you can choose to read the words and phrases that are critical to comprehension, and skip over the connective tissue. Connective words like 'and', 'or', 'the' and 'are', can get you stuck on the minutia. If you are reading word-for-word, you will probably become stuck on little words that do not give you much information for your effort.
Train yourself to read more quickly by forced timing. For example, if you were a runner and you were training for a race, you would go out and run every day and you try to improve your time and your distance. You can do the same with your reading; Set a timer and run a reading race every day for two or three weeks. You do not have to spend more than five or ten minutes a day on this exercise. You may become frustrated, at first, by the fact that you cannot read as fast or remember as much as you would like.
Even more important than becoming a "Speed Reader" is the goal of becoming an "Efficient Reader". An efficient reader is a reader with a purpose. An efficient reader knows what it is that they want to get out of what is being read, and they may even have some questions in mind that they hope the book will be able to answer.
An efficient reader focuses on ideas, rather than words, and visualizes the ideas presented in the book or article. As they read, the efficient reader will mentally 'sort' the information to decide what is important and what is not. They direct their focus on only the important or intriguing information.
An efficient reader reads at a steady pace. They do not 'regress', or go back to re-read. They do not hesitate over a line and wonder whether they have gotten every tiny bit of the information. Efficient readers know to adjust their reading speed to increase focus on a particularly critical area or to accommodate for a sudden distraction or interruption that may affect their focus.
In other words, efficient readers are reading 'consciously' and are therefore aware when they needs to increase the focus so that they do not miss vital information.
When you sit down to read an article or a book, test your comprehension after every reading session. Mentally challenge yourself to remember as many things as you can about what you just read. Again, this is a skill that will improve with practice.
Remember that it is vital to improve your reading speed, but not at the cost to your reading comprehension. You must find the balance between being an Efficient Reader and a Speed Reader. Reading 2000 words a minute is not going to do you any good if you have no idea what you just read.
With practice you can improve both your reading speed and your comprehension. But you must practice!
For more information about speed-reading, Check This Out.
Check out IntelligenceUnderstood.com for more great brain improvement information.
About the Author
IntelligenceUnderstood.com is a great place to pick up tips and advice to help you improve your mind. You Can Also Get Free Gifts.
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