How to Read a Book Faster Method 1 It is absolutely non-negotiable. Ditch the confusion for clarity by downloading The Ultimate Guide to Finding the Career That Fits You. Is It Better to Read at Night or in the Morning? Have you ever found yourself reading a sentence quietly, but your lips still mimicked what it would be like to say the word out loud? As you move, be sure to keep your eyes looking forward. The 9-Step Process to Read Faster (an Overview) 1. After looking from left to right a few times, repeat the exercise, but allow your eyes to move with the motion of your head. If the average person takes 5 to 10 minutes per page, a speed reader doesn't need much more than 2 or 3. Sprita is certainly one of the more interesting speed reading tools. I'm very interested in hearing your opinions on this piece as it hit close to home, so please feel free to drop a comment, and you can be sure I'll read through it very, very quickly. Focusing on Reading. There are plenty of small, obscure little words that don't help you, and trying to force yourself to read them can only hurt. Think about the wealth of knowledge that has been written since humans picked up the pencil and got to writing: That's all at your disposal now. “For a lot of people, their commute was their reading time, and they’ve lost that,” she says. So, if a person s reading speed increases, a significant increase in his concentration and powers of retention should also be noted. However, practice does indeed make perfect. In this light, speed reading obviously has different implications for different books. The exception here is when I have an epiphany or get confused, but those are both still natural parts of reading. That part is simple, but most people seem to miss out on the fact that they can train their eyes to move faster. When it comes to reading, we are often limited by the time that it takes for our subconscious mind to pronounce the words on the page. Read the publication’s beginning and end, and give attention to places having expressive pictures and drawings. One cannot happen without the other. The goal of this one is to concentrate on the exercises themselves for faster growth, rather than importing text that you might want to read and making you practice with that. There are a few different option to choose from, and most of them provide excellent features that makes using them both an exercise in speed reading and a way to save time. For a fantastic and more thorough write-up on the value of practice in speed reading, check out this excellent resource. Even to people who read a lot, that is not a number that is feasible on a daily basis. Before improving anything, you must know how good or bad you are … When you just try to move quickly, you cannot possibly maintain a fluid and flowing form of speed reading, because you will eventually hit your limit and skip a word. We have motion created by the head that does not affect the eyes, motion created by the head that is shared with the eyes and motion created by the eyes that does not affect the head. How many of you put down “read more books” as one of your goals this year, yet fail to read all but two before the year ends? Read the book once but your notes multiple times. If I need to learn something about jet skis, I can do it in record time. The app then takes whatever you've already pasted and turns it into its own exercise, allowing you to pick and choose exactly what you'd like to both read and practice on all in the same app. More importantly, I think it's a useful skill for anyone interested in personal development. For example, Goodreads has an annual challenge reading that gamifies your reading goal. One of these skills that works against us is our comfort in reading without a guide, but in order to learn as quickly as possible, using a guide is a must. It might seem like speed reading should be this ridiculously difficult skill to master, but it isn't. In the military, higher education, surgery rooms and life-or-death situations, we know consciously that we want to prepare to the best of our abilities. To determine your current reading speed, take your practice book (which should lay flat when open on a table) and count the number of words in five lines. And finally, Acceleread is like a swiss army knife of speed reading tools. Here are more speed reading apps we have reviewed. The first book will be a thick, boring history textbook. This is an excellent way to encourage you to read more books because it's fun and interactive. Accelerator is an iOS 8 app that allows you to import articles, documents and other texts and links into a speed-reading practice app. Granted, it takes a while to adapt to this approach. If you want a to practice this skill, here are “eye exercises” for speeding (with some seriously cheesy club music): In order to understand how speed readers get so fast at moving through pages, it's absolutely crucial to realize that not every word is created equal. If you were to observe me speed reading, you would notice I do not need to use a guide, but my eyes are constantly darting from the beginning to the end of the line. But often, sitting down to do it gets moved to the bottom of our to-do list every single time. To learn more, here's a useful video on how to eliminate subvocalization: Another crucial element of speed reading is the ability to recognize your own growth. If we needed to find specific dates and names within the book, it would be easy to just speed read through the pages while scanning for the names. Example: 62 words/5 lines = 12.4, which you round to 12 words-per-line Next, count the number of text lines on 5 pages and divide by 5 to arrive at the average number of lines per page. Using a finger to guide yourself while reading is often considered to be reserved for children and then forgotten once they have the hang of reading. If it only takes one book to change a life, thirty books could transform you beyond anything you've ever thought you were capable of becoming. By doing these exercises, you have just isolated all of the core components of using your eyes to speed read. It’s that simple! (Side note: Another positive way to improve your life is to read and learn something new every day. Find a routine. If you begin to pay attention to your eyes, I can guarantee that you will start to notice just how often you move back, then forward, then back again. From a learning perspective, it's probably a better use of my time to read books than to read online content. You can read 6 times more books if you know how to speed read If you’re wondering how to read more, learn more, and grow faster, here are 15 ways that can help you: 1. 300 pages a day is a tall order. That is subvocalization. Before you click out, let me explain. 4. I know what you might be thinking: That would work for me temporarily, but I’ve never stuck with any new habit for that long. of 3: The biggest and most important hurdle in speed reading is not in learning new skills but in removing old skills that work against us. When we speak a word out loud, that takes a certain amount of time to pronounce. Trying to figure how to apply your passions outside of work to your everyday job? However, we do not actually need to pronounce words when we read. We don't say them out loud, but our mind speaks them unconsciously: This is known as “subvocalizing.”. Finally, if you want another positive way to improve your life, then read and learn something new every day. A great tool to do this is to join over 1 million others and start your day with the latest FREE, informative news from this website. One of the biggest and easiest epiphanies in your journey to become a speed reader will be in recognizing how much your eyes move while you read. According to time management expert Julie Morgenstern, author of Time Management From the Inside Out, the new normal has meant a loss of reading time. What you would not notice is that I am doing so at a very consistent speed. Unfortunately, the habit of speaking words as we read them is often so deeply embedded in our unconscious mind that the idea of breaking free of it seems impossible. So the first step of becoming a speed reader is to recognize that by exercising and practicing with this scanning motion, our eyes become faster and more prepared to read quickly. Moving your eyes with your head, like in the second sentence, helps create relaxed and fluid motion as you transition from line to line or page to page. Engage with what you're reading. The speed aspect is simply the ability to control one part of how we read. And once that's done, you've torn down the biggest barrier between yourself and speed reading. Use a Pointer, Indicator or Your Index Finger, 9. Your reading area should be free from distractions. In an earlier HBR piece called “8 Ways to Read (a Lot) More Books This Year,” I shared how for most of my adult life I read five books a year, tops. One of the obvious shortcuts to reading more is to read faster. If you're wondering whether it's better to read in the morning or at night, check out this article. Read in the morning. It's important to realize that this very guide might be the key you need to take your life to new heights. Carry your book… Your head should be perfectly in place while you glance to the left and right in a horizontal line. Skim through the content and attempt to pick up a comprehension of the entire page. Before you can measure your growth you will need a baseline. Here’s to finding the career of your dreams! This speed reading book is an interesting additional read for students and professionals alike and for all those who wish to simply read more and enhance their learning speed. Just remember that practice makes perfect, and the time that it takes to develop will fly right on by. Get 2 Free Audiobooks: https://amzn.to/2uLLFjz This video will teach you how to read much faster than you are reading now! Spritz reading is all about not moving your eyes. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. I have only tested it using the Spritz demo. It's just a few key understandings and a lot of practice. Enter my next great hack: Making my habit cost money. When you learn how to increase reading speed and comprehension both, your are able to read with no loss. I cannot begin to imagine where my life would be now if I had never learned how to read faster. Want to build success habits that will improve your life? At this stage, your primary goal is to time yourself regularly and continue to practice the techniques that are discussed here in the article. Crystal Paine from MoneySavingMom picks up her current read for 10 minutes every morning while Gretchen Rubin likes to unwind with a book every night. If you find that more often than not your reading hours slowly begin to turn into even more smart phone time, make your device less of a distraction and download a reading app. The best tools for speed reading practice are simple, common apps that streamline the process of learning the skill. Once you know what habits are holding back your reading speed, it’s a lot easier to read faster.” The first bad reading habit is subvocalization. The best part of skipping the small words is that they do not contribute anything useful, so skipping them effectively means that you are getting more out of your reading experience. I got The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program in high school,... 2. If you’ve done your reading well and taken notes as you read, you have a record of the thoughts being communicated. You’ll have plenty of time to consider a finished book while you fight your way into a subway car or prepare your dinner or shoot the shit at the bar. Books typically have better writing (more tightly edited) and higher quality information (better fact-checking and more extensive research). It doesn't take me 15 hours to get through a simple book anymore, and that's a profound change. When you learn how to speed read, you effectively increase the likelihood that you will discover that next, great book. Consider bookmarking this for future reference, and come back every once in a while to reread the page and see if there's anything you missed the first time around. While I'm not the fastest reader around, I have found that improving my speed reading skill has flipped a switch in my brain that's had a lasting impact on every corner of my life. In the long run, this adds entire hours to your reading experience, and it might even prevent you from finishing in the first place. Your head should be moving while your eyes stay still. 10 Days To Faster Reading – Princeton Language Institute 3 Steps to Reading Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger “It’s that little voice in your head you use from time to time when you read. Skim or scan the text first.. Please do your own research before making any online purchase. You can’t just go from listening at a normal speed to super-fast in a day and still think you’re going to comprehend everything. Also, if you slow your pointer down, your reading will slow. 5 Tips for How to Read Faster Without Losing Comprehension 1. 3. It follows the same concept of saving time, but it is an entirely different skill to develop. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this tutorial and wealth of information, and I wish you the best of luck in your journey to faster reading that suits you best. Rating: ★★★★☆ 6. Affiliate links are used on this site. By teaching your eyes to scan in straight lines and using the motion of your head to add that extra layer of control to the mix, you will be able to comfortably maneuver your eyes across the page at speeds you never thought were possible. Spritz App. If I need to learn a language, I can scan through the pages and find the most valuable information as quickly as possible. From that simple understanding, the trick is to create a few new habits that will develop the skill quickly, effortlessly and enjoyably. Here are 5 methods you can use to read more books in less time. It outlines the type of practice you can do to develop your skills, but it also provides lots of different tips and perspectives for becoming a more refined speed reader as well. What's probably happening is that as you read, you occasionally dart back to the left or skip ahead slightly and have to readjust your eyes while you read. Because our brain enjoys the book, there is no real reason to control the reading process unless we don't understand a part of the story. There are going to be various obstacles in your way, but fortunately, most of them are easily dealt with. This means that a 200 page book comes out to 400 minutes for a speed reader and 1,000 to 2,000 minutes for the average reader. When moving through text, you will come to find that certain sections of a book might be a breeze to read through, while others are too full of useful information to read quickly. Now, imagine how your life would be different if you didn't read it. Spreeder is an excellent tool that allows you to copy and paste anything you'd like into a small word processor. Our Answer…, How to Read More Books and Actually Retain the Information, >> Click to Grab the FREE Book: The Morning Routine for Peak Performance<<. While most people believe that speed reading is a difficult habit to built, the truth is it's an art that can be mastered with the right set of exercises and tools. ... Mark your first line and read with a timer for one minute exactly -- do not read faster than normal, and read for comprehension. You should never have to read a chapter more than once (in theory). Copyright 2019 by Oldtown Publishing LLC. A great tip for defeating this step is to start looking at and thinking about words without the need to pronounce them. 4. As someone who runs his own business and has two kids, I don’t have a heck of a lot of free time. How to Read a Book Fast – 15 Minutes Trick 1) Read quietly. How many of you put down “read more books” as one of your goals this year, yet fail to read all but two before the year ends? This list and this list include some of my favorites. Then watch this video to get the 9-step process for building habits that stick: So let's break down the basics and dive into the good stuff…. Imagine the ability to read ten, twenty or thirty more books this year without having to spend massive chunks of your day pushing through the pages. If you do this twice per page, it could easily add 30 seconds to each page or 100 minutes to a 200 page book. Let that sink in for a moment. In fact, it took me about three months to adjust the speed to where I am now. A great resource for tracking your results can be found at ReadingSoft.com, which provides a rapid, consistent measurement of how quickly you're reading. Subvocalising is the hardest and the most crucial habit, which stops us from reading faster, hence it... 2) Know your speed. We are working with this contributor on an affiliate basis (meaning we earn a little money when you choose to use their services), but rest assured that we don’t just work with anyone. In order to speed read, you have to pay attention to what your eyes are doing while you read. At any given time, I’ll be reading one book as a paperback, and a different book on my Kindle app, often picking a “lighter” book for the latter selection, since I won’t be engaging it with as much sustained attention. For the average person, their eyes cannot keep moving in a single, fluid line without needing to backtrack. Here are some tricks I use to read more: 1. Staples (yes, the office supply chain) collected speed reading data as part of an advertising campaign for selling e-readers. At first, the skill will come slowly, but it will inevitably become easier over a few days. RELATED: How to Build a New Habit That Actually Sticks, A great exercise that doesn't require a book is to practice moving your eyes from left to right while also moving your head from left to right, A great tool to do this is to join over 1 million others and start your day with the latest FREE, informative news from this website. So, I found one major time hack: listening to books instead. We have tips that are easy to learn. Finally, keep your head straight and look with your eyes to the left and right a few times. In order to learn this precious skill, you need to start getting used to scanning through pages upon pages of words. Unfortunately, that's probably not how your eyes work yet. This is a natural part of reading, and transitioning smoothly from thick material to easy reading is a measure of control. By regularly taking the tests here, it'll be much easier for you to recognize that you're growing, and that will provide all the motivational fuel you'll need to keep going. There's no fluidity. That's an extra hour and a half lost to backtracking over the span of an entire book. If you move your hand faster, you will be forced to read faster. Remember, speed reading is about more than simply taking in information at a faster rate. 1. Make the bet on reading by opening an account at Goodreads or Reco, friending a few coworkers or friends, and then updating your profile every time you read a … After all, if I was paying for it, I might as well buy (and listen to) as much as I could before the month ended. These tips are not the same as speed reading, although there is some crossover. It's a perfect choice for those looking to get a lot of value without ever spending a penny. There will still be a slight bit of sub-vocalization, but by merely observing words without the desire to pronounce them, the new habit will begin to form on its own. Take advantage of travel time. When using a guide, your primary goal is to move the guide at a very consistent pace. In this article, I'll go through a simple nine-step process you can use to learn how to read faster. When I gave myself a huge goal—to read 24 books in one year—I knew that I’d have to think differently about how to achieve it. Divide this number of words by 5, and you have your average number of words-per-line. Moving your eyes independently, as in the third exercise, is the core of scanning from one side of the line to the next. Reading is the only way to stand on the shoulders of the giants all around us. What happened instead was they learned to read at a young age, slowly developed the skill over years and never considered that there was a way to train themselves to read faster. Over time, your brain will naturally learn to skip over them for you, and you can scan sentences while skipping a significant amount of insignificance. By skipping words, we're getting more. But what if I told you that reading can seamlessly fit into your life—without much effort? Because as much as it can be relaxing and provide moments of refuge from our busy schedules, reading also takes a ton of mental energy. The problem with understanding your own baseline is that it's hard to translate it into practical terms when a program says that you're reading a certain amount of words per minute. Use a Pointer, Indicator or Your Index Finger. There are plenty of reasons to crack open a book on a frequent basis, if you want to know more you can read Reading With Purpose Can Change Your Life. It flashes the words in from of your eye, highlighting one letter to center each word to keep your eyes tracking the words as they flash past at what seems like light speed. We all need to read more. How To Read Better And Faster by Norman Lewis is based on the premise that one s reading speed is linked to concentration and retention. Instead, it just feels like reading an article while working on your speed reading. You must learn to think of speed reading like a marathon rather than a race. All that you need to be concerned with is looking at words without the desire to hear the way they sound. When it comes to reading, we are often limited ... 2. Learn how to read without subvocalizing, 3. Here at The Muse, we love introducing you to people who can boost your career. Remember, speed isn't the only important part of speed reading: You still have to do the actual reading. This one is like going to the gym for speed reading. The rookie makes the mistake of believing that speed reading is all about speed, but it is fundamentally about reading. Preparing to Read. Accelerator is highly recommended. Unfortunately, most people never push the limits of their eyes or mind. Most people can scan in 1.5 inch chunks, which, d epending on the font size and type … Apple Books , NOOK , and more offer digital bookstores with thousands of reads to … If you commute by … Ready to use my hack, but need some book recommendations? Your eyes have to move from left to right to read a sentence. A great tool to do this is to join over 1 million others and start your day with the latest FREE, informative news from this website.). But I found I fully comprehended the text even at a blazing fast 700 words per minute. By practicing in this way, you're going to be able to notice when you get stuck or lose momentum much easier than if you simply tried to follow along and move as quickly as possible. This is an important factor because you do not want to increase your reading speed but not have the material you read make an actual impression. I witnessed massive personal growth, development and knowledge gains. It doubles in value as both a practice tool and a learning tool, because by incorporating articles that you'll already want to read, the practice doesn't feel tedious or mechanical. Whether you’re lamenting the lack of reading time in your life or you simply want to read more books, you’re not alone. Define Your Purpose for Reading Before you start reading, ask yourself why are you reading this book. Reading faster is possible, even if speed reading isn't always the best way to go about it. 3) Chain-read Whether you read multiple books at once or one at a time, don’t let more than a few minutes go by after you finish a book before you immediately pick up another. When it comes to speed reading, the two more important tools are your eyes and your mind. If you've made it this far, congratulations: You have everything you need to handle this on your own now. That’s likely the first place a lot of us would look for a quick win in our reading routine. This results in backtracking, and backtracking results in confusion. You'll be better in five weeks than you will be tomorrow, so relax and enjoy the ride; you'll get there eventually. Multiply this by average number of words-per-line, and you have your average number of word… To give you an idea of what we'll cover, here's a great infographic that covers the basics of speed reading: Welcome to the hardest and most crucial habit to tear down. Determine Your Current Baseline. Learn how to read without subvocalizing. However, this trick comes in handy again while learning to speed read for a few key reasons. Why Should You Build the Speed Reading Habit? But each is to a product that we've researched and highly recommend. Your eyes see the words and your mind processes the sentences. Our second book is a fiction book. It's a great place to start, but from the practical perspective, it's more important to know how many minutes it takes to read an average page. Reading doesn’t have to be a slow process. If you want more ideas for faster reading, check out these posts: 5 Tips for How to Read Faster Without Losing Comprehension. If reading a book has the power to transform our future, why wouldn't we want to read at our best? You can find an excellent example of this written out in the very first tip. Simply allow your eyes to continue moving across the unimportant words. For those with an eReader, ReadMe! That's more than half a day in lost time! You learn to read faster. That means the average reader has to spend an extra 13 hours on the same book. of 3: To determine your current reading speed, take your practice book (which should lay flat when open on a table) and count the number of words in 5 lines. Once that's done, the rest is a breeze. Please do your own research before making any online purchase. You have everything you need to read through some of the most powerful and helpful books you can find, and you can do it faster than all your friends, relatives, acquaintances and enemies. This app offers a ton of functionality, but it's specifically designed to assist with speed reading through ebooks. Please feel free to share this with any of your friends that want to learn, have yet to discover their passion or that you personally think would like this. We all know that reading’s important for both our minds and our life’s potential (those who read more have a disproportionately higher income, studies say). There might be affiliate links on this page, which means we get a small commission of anything you buy. While most of the other apps listed here have import features or work with specific forms of text, Acceleread is a true-blue speed reading trainer designed with its own exercises. We all know that reading’s important for both our minds and our life’s potential (those who read more have a disproportionately higher income, studies say).But often, sitting down to do it gets moved to the bottom of our to-do list every single time. And not just listening to them, but increasing my listening speed. Looking to learn how to read faster while retaining what you've learned? A great exercise that doesn't require a book is to practice moving your eyes from left to right while also moving your head from left to right. It might not be easy at first, but once you've beaten this part, everything else is cake by comparison. Your eyes should still be centered and not looking left or right. If you think that reading is too time consuming, you might want to give speed reading a try. By this point, you've already heard most of what you need to know. So how fast do you read? Spritz as a little bit different than some of these apps. It's just like working out a muscle; do it constantly and it will grow stronger. "What I've found is a really good time for me is to read in the morning — particularly on weekend mornings," Neary says. is a fantastic choice. Keeping your eyes fixed in place, like in the first exercise, helps with focusing on a single word or phrase that you might want to slow down to read. You'll find that with a little bit of practice, you'll see it's simple to glide through dozen of pages in a few short minutes. This kind of control allows you to carefully read confusing or important sections of text and go faster through obvious text or pieces of fluff. A great trick is to pick out any word in this text and look at it for a moment in total silence. Continue to Practice and Time Yourself, 200+ of the Best Self-Help and Personal Development Books, 71 Morning Routine Ideas to Successfully Start Your Day, Learn Something New: 101 New Skills to Learn Starting Today, Best Pedometer Watch (and Wearable) Review for 2020. Since modern technology has made ebooks one of the most convenient ways to read, this one is extremely recommended for everyone from kids to professionals. Let's take two separate books to illustrate this point. Of course, listening at a faster speed took practice. Warren Buffett spends 80% of his day reading.Bill Gates reads a book a week. After a little bit of practice, perhaps a few hundred words, you'll start to notice the difference between speaking the word unconsciously and simply allowing it to enter your mind. Doing both these things made it possible to add this activity into my schedule in a lot of different ways (like say, while driving my kids to practice or in between meetings) and finish books in half the time it used to take me. If we go back to our understanding that an extra thirty seconds per page can translate to an entire hour and a half, imagine what can be done when we eliminate all of the “if,” “is,” “to,” “the” and other small-yet-insignificant words. It should simply slide from one side of the text to the other at a very uniform speed. The article gives an excellent example text that shows certain words do not contribute very much to figuring out what the sentence is saying. Audible has this great feature that allows you to automatically download a certain amount of books to your phone, tablet, or laptop per month. When it comes to articles like this, we chose to work with this coach not because he wanted a Muse byline, but because his advice was truly awesome. All of the information contained in this list has been invaluable to me. Spritz doesn't exactly teach you how to read faster it teaches us to use its software to reconfigure the things you want to read in an entirely new way. It’s about digesting and comprehending more information in a shorter amount of time, allowing you to read more books with speed reading. How to Read 100 Books in One Year. Then once you have a baseline to measure, you will need to periodically measure your reading against this baseline. We can simply absorb them. Method 2 If you learn and use even a few of these tips, you'll get through your reading faster and have more time for other … More importantly, you probably never attempt to speed up the motion of your eyes. The 9-Step Process to Read Faster (an Overview), 1. Using technology to your benefit, like listening faster and automating your library, helps to make reading on a tight schedule a piece of cake. That's right, you already understand the core skills needed to start speed reading. Think of the one book that has had the biggest impact on your life. Welcome to the hardest and most crucial habit to tear down. Be sure to share your ideas for undergrad and grad school speed reading in the comments. From 2011 to 2013, I read 197 books and became obsessed. But perhaps this reading might be tiring if you had to read an entire book worth of material. In other words, the amount of time that it takes me to cross a single line of text is mostly the same as I continue my way throughout the page. But most importantly, if I ever feel the desire to expand myself, I can do it in a reasonable amount of time. If we needed to find the significance of these people and dates, we would need to slow down and absorb the material a little bit more closely. We may simply breeze through the text, let the story fill our mind and slow down when we feel we have missed out on something significant. Consider your environment. You could simply look at a sentence and scan over it from left to right as quickly as possible, and you'd be exercising the muscle that controls your eyeballs. It's a whimsical story about a family trapped on a mountain and the adventures they have trying to find the way off of it. However, it's not as easy as just jumping from being a 17-hour reader to a speed reader. And it comes with a small cost—which actually became a hugely motivating factor for me to keep selecting books to read each month. Scott Anthony Barlow is the Founder and CEO of, 15% off Career Coaching | Use code CYBER15 through Dec 13th |, The Ultimate Guide to Finding the Career That Fits You. Training yourself to skip the small words is as simple as recognizing that you don't need to pay so much attention to them. This part might feel obscure or abstract in the beginning, and that's totally normal. Stop subvocalizing.. Subvocalization is by far the most common factor in … You should not stop your finger or slow it down. If you’re more of a physical-book person, try creating a routine to ensure you read a little bit every day. Wish you could finish books quickly and effortlessly? Try not to attempt to retain everything while you experience the book, as it will essentially lessen your pace of reading. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. To increase your reading speed, pay attention to your eyes.