StartSpeedReading.com

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In the today’s world, which is flooded by information many people suffer from time shortages to consume that information. Reading is the most important source of information. We read different types of text both for job and for leisure. For example, we read e-mails, reports, articles, blog posts, books etc.

Reading is a time consuming activity. An average person reads texts at 200-250 words per minute. It means that if there are 500 words per page in a book then it will take 2-2.5 minutes for him to complete a page. That person can read 24-30 pages in one hour. At 250 words per minute it will take 6 hours and 40 minutes to complete a 200 page book.

Some people are slower and some are faster than average readers. For example, an educated person, who reads lots of texts every day can read at 350 words per minute or even faster. A guy who puts rarely his nose into book may manage only 150 words per minute.

Do you want to know how fast reader you are? You can test your reading speed by this test.

Fortunately, it is possible to increase your reading speed, by learning special techniques for reading faster. On the general, most people can double their reading speed if they have had decent amount of speed reading practice. This decent practice means that you will take a speed reading course and after the completion of the course you will spend 45 minutes a day for a month on speed reading practice.

Doubling your reading speed will mean that if you were reading at 250 words per minute initially then now you can read at 500 words per minute. You can finish the 200 page book in the half of what it took previously. You are estimated to complete it in 3 hours and 20 minutes.

50% of e-mail messages contain 250 or less words. So you can decrease the reading time of that kind of message from 1 minute to 30 seconds. If you have to read 40 messages per day, then you will save alone 10 minutes a day on reading e-mails.

But how far can I go with speed reading? Well, if you take it seriously then you may be able to triple your initial reading speed, but not everyone is capable of doing it. So you can reach 750 words per minute from 250. Usually slower readers are more likely to gain more reading speed so it would be easier to increase from 200 to 600 than from 250 to 750.

Best speed readers can read at 1000 words per minute and faster. The speed reading word record is held by Anne Jones. In 2007 she read “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” at Borders, Charing Cross Road, London in 47 minutes and one second – 4251 words per minute.

Most people will never reach these reading speeds and actually there is no need for it. Reading fast itself should not be a goal for you, it is only a means to being more productive in mental work. In order to process information fast, having a good mechanical reading speed is not enough. It is important that you can select important information, organize your work efficiently and so on, in order to work productively. Fortunately, many speed reading courses will teach you not only to read a given text fast, but also how to select and prioritize your reading materials, how to make quick previews and manage your time on reading.

Only if you put all theses skills together, then you will be a productive worker and will save time on office work.

kristjan Speed Reading reading speed, speed reading

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I have been asked many times for the tips for preparing and taking SAT Critical Reading Test. How to get the maximum result out of that test? How to avoid getting into time trouble and how to answer all questions correctly?

The first thing I would say is that it is not likely that you will get a good result without decent preparation. You need many skills to do well on the Critical Reading. I would say that the most important skills for the test are vocabulary, comprehension, concentration skills. In addition reading speed plays some role in the test taking, but it is not so critical as if you allocate your time wisely then there is enough time to perform the test.

You should really work on your vocabulary. It does matter a lot as many questions in that test call for good understanding of meanings of not so every day words. For increasing the vocabulary you should read different types of texts before the exam. You should read fiction, newspapers, journals etc. in order to build a large vocabulary. Look up words you don’t know while thinking about the author’s purpose, tone, etc.

Reading different texts improves also your reading comprehension. In order to improve your comprehension further try practicing sample reading comprehension tests. Reading comprehension is strongly related to concentration. You will not memorize what you have read if your concentration is poor. For getting good concentration you should learn to read without thinking on any other things except the text. Your concentration abilities on the exam day will depend on your energy level. Therefore get a good night’s sleep the night before the test Eat breakfast. You’ll be at the test center for many hours and if you get hungry then your stomach will distract you.

The critical reading test consists of Sentence Completion and Reading Comprehension tests.

Sentence Completion questions provide you with a sentence missing one or more words and require you to choose the best word to fill in the blanks. In order to do well on that part of the test then follow these tips:

• Before you look at the answers, try to complete the sentence with words that make sense to you. If what you come up is one of the answer choices, select it as your answer. If you have developed good vocabulary then following your intuition will usually lead to correct answer.
• If following the previous tip did not give the correct answer then read all the answer choices before selecting one. Find which one suits the best. If there are two words to fill in the blanks then be sure that both of these words have to fit to the sentence. If you see that one of the words does not fit then this cannot be the correct answer.
• Use the context of nearby words to figure out unknown words. If you’re really stuck for the meaning of a word, try to think of other words that have similar prefixes, roots, or suffixes

Reading Comprehension test questions your understanding of the content and style of specific reading passages. You will be asked to answer 48 multiple-choice questions based on short and long passages. In order to answer the questions correctly you will benefit from these tips:

• Before reading the passage make a quick preview of it. It means that you will scan it with your eyes at fast pace. You will get the most important keywords and information from it within few seconds and it will prepare your mind for reading it. During the preview read the italicized introductory text.
• Now read the passage. During reading fully focus to the text. Do no think on any other things. Be active while reading. You may underline some keywords, which you think are the most important.
• Keep in mind that your answers should be based solely on what is stated or implied in the passages. Do not fantasize. If it is not in the text then it is not relevant to the answer.
• While answering the questions then there is often giving a reference line number. Then look at this line, but remember to read also the preceding and following lines in order to put the answer to the context.

If you don’t know the answers then try to guess it. This holds true for the both parts of the Critical Reading Test. However, you should be able to rule out one of the answers in order to benefit from guessing the answers as you will get 0.25 points deducted for the wrong answer. Still you will get 1 point for the correct one and if you can rule at least one wrong answer out then you will benefit from guessing among the remaining ones.

You should also keep in mind that all the questions give 1 point for the correct answer regardless of the difficulty of the question. Therefore begin with the easiest questions. In case of Sentence Completion test the first questions are easier. If you find trouble answering a question, then do not spend too much time on it but move to the next question. If you have time left then come back to that question. On the general you should spend only seconds on the easiest questions and not more than 1-2 minutes on even the hardest ones.

kristjan Speed Reading comprehension, concentration skills, critical reading, reading speed, SAT

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Buying books spends a lot of money. If you want to read one book per week and an average book costs about $25 then you will be spending $100 on books per month. It is $1,200 per one year and in 50 years it makes $60,000. And how many of these books do you really need twice? Of course, there are some books, which you use for longer period, but it happens to be that for most books we only read them once and then let them to collect dust.

There are alternatives to buying books such as going to the library. Or you can borrow books from your friends. But when you happen to be in a bookshop and see an interesting book then it can create you a desire to buy it so you can start reading it immediately after you get home. Maybe the library is in the other end of the city and you don’t have time to go there. It may also happen that the book you see in the store is not available in the library. They can tell you that you can have it in two weeks.

In that kind of a situation many people will buy the book. But knowing how to speed read gives you one more option. Read the book in the book store. That may sound ridiculous but if you are a fast reader then it is possible and practical.

Learning to speed read makes you able to read 2 or 3 times faster than normally. If it takes you 6 hours to finish a book then after sufficient practice it is possible to achieve a level that you can complete that book in 2 hours. But that’s not all. Speed reading is not only about reading a given text faster. Speed reading methods allow you also to read selectively.

Selective reading means that you will intentionally leave out some parts of the text. After all for most of the books you do not really need to get 100% of the information written there. If you want to read a non-fiction books such as a book about gardening, personal finance or home improvement then you will actually want to get the main points from it. In many cases you are interested in only some specific chapters of the book.

Selective reading methods such as different previewing techniques will allow you to work through books at much higher rate. For example, you can work through a 200 page book in 45 minutes, which getting at least 50% of information from it and you do not have to be a superfast reader for that.

In Estonia, there are pretty good conditions for reading in some book store. There are sofas for sitting and you can order coffee and cake there. I have read many books in the book stores since I learned to speed read. It is really nice way to use time efficiently if I have half an hour’s time to spare and I happen to be in a shopping center.

kristjan Speed Reading selective reading, speed reading

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It is well known that speed reading skills help people to do better at the university and to achieve a higher GPA. If you are faster reader then you can read more texts, which gives you an advantage over other students. Furthermore, speed readers concentrate better to the text, which leads to higher comprehension. And speed reading methods allow you to read selectively and spend more time on the most important parts of the study material.

Similarly, time management skills allow students to plan their studies and to use their time efficiently. Many students get into time trouble before the exams as they have not scheduled their time. This results in heavy cramming, which is not the most efficient way to study.

However, there has not been conducted so many scientific studies for proving these effects. While the benefits of speed reading and time management have been accepted for many people there still have been some people who doubt in these effects. For example, some people do not believe that being able to read fast will help you to study better and you will not remember much if you read fast.

Fortunately, things have started to changes and recently a group of researchers in Kerman University made a study, which tackles the question: How do study skills and study habits affect academic achievement. Among study skills they also investigated the effect of speed reading and time management skills. The results of the study were published at the Journal of Medicine Education.

400 medical students from that university were included in the sample. It included students for BA; MA and PhD programs. The study revealed that the main defects in students’ study skills were poor planning and time management as well as low concentration and note taking skills. The results indicated that study skills had clear correlation with academic achievement measured by GPA.

Both time management skills and reading speed were found to have a positive impact on GPA. The students with educational success pointed out the study skills as a contributing factor while the students with educational failure expressed lack of good study skills a major factor of their failure.

Mastering study skills makes study more enjoyable and effective which in turn strengthen the students’ interest so he/she spends more time studying. For example, if a student has higher reading speed then reading creates less boredom and he is likely to spend more time on reading.

The scientists argue that students need to learn study skills early in their university life as it will lay basis for their academic success. They suggest that that in the universities there should be educational course or workshop about university skills for students.

kristjan Speed Reading, time management academic achievement, speed reading, student, study skills, time mangement

Picture by Alan Heitz

Many people think that speed reading is meant for reading books. Of course, when speed reading was invented then there was no internet or PCs so the only way to read texts was from paper. However, things have changed a lot from that time. At present many of us read more texts from the web pages than they do from paper.

How to speed read texts from the web? Basically, there is not much difference between reading text from paper and from the computer screen. Still, there exist some additional options for increasing your reading speed from computer screen such as the possibility to change the font size.

There are different types of texts, which we read from computer. Some of them are very similar to the written documents. For example, ebooks, newspaper articles, manuals, product reviews etc. are appear usually in exactly the same wording as in the printed versions. On the other hand there are some texts on the web, which are different form printed texts. Blog posts and social media text have somewhat different structure and content. Even the articles published in places such as Ezinearticles.com are not very similar to the ones in printed media.

The amount of blog and social media texts has increased explosively during the recent year or two. This has created a huge information overload, which results in the fact that many people spend far too much time on reading that kind of texts from the web. Many people waste much of their working time on it and often it is not work-related reading. Browsing web and reading blogs is a form of procrastination for some office workers.

While I could just recommend not reading those kinds of texts in order to get more work done then this would not be the best solution. These texts can be a valuable source of information. For example, I get many of new ideas from reading blog posts. You have to be wise on reading them.

You have to be selective when reading on the web. There is a huge amount of low quality content on the web. Read only those sources which provide you something valuable. Therefore following only a limited number of blogs is a good idea. If you are searching for information and find some an interesting article of blog post then you should bookmark it before reading it. If you want to get an overview of some topic then it is better if you search for articles about it then select only the best of them for further reading and later you will read bookmarked pages. It helps you to save time as you will far often end up reading low quality texts.

There is also not too much genuine content in the blogs. Many of the posts are written about common topics and provide the reader too little new knowledge. For example if you read about how to make gifts to your girlfriend or how to loose weight or save money then you can find similar tips for it on thousands of articles or posts. You should actually read only these texts, which provide you new information, which you have not heard before.

How can you find out, which texts are worth reading? For that you have to make a quick preview of the text. It means that you will look through it at fast pace, virtually you will just let the eyes fly over it. When doing it, then focus on the following items:

• Title. Usually the title says much about the main idea of the text. If you have a feeling that the text is not right for you then you can stop reading it after the title.
• Subtitles. Blog posts and web articles have usually many subtitles, which summarize the blocks of texts. Read all of them quickly and you get a good overview of the content. Again, if you find that the text is not right for you then do not waste more time on reading it.
• First paragraph. The first 2-3 sentences usually point out the main idea of the text.

And only if you have found the content worth reading then you can read it. Read less, but more quality texts.

kristjan Speed Reading blogs, computer screen, procrastination, reading books, speed reading, web pages, working time

Mind map

Source: Wikipedia

Every day we read all kinds of texts and we attain new information. Sadly, we forget much of it afterwards. An average person will forget 50% of the acquired information within the first hour after the completion of reading. After one day we remember only 10% of the content of the text. Of course, this holds true for an average person and an average text. If we consciously try remember something or pay more attention to the reading material then we will not forget that much, but still forgetting is a big problem which bothers you especially if you read for study reasons.

What can we do to decrease forgetting? We have to make changes to our reading process. We can improve in three different areas:

• Activities before reading. If we are more fresh and relaxed then we will remember the text better. Applying previewing techniques to the text will also help to increase comprehension.
• Activities during reading. We have to keep our thoughts concentrated to the text and avoid distractions. If we let out mind to wonder away from the text then we will memorize the content poorly and will forget it easily.
• Activities after reading. We can prevent forgetting by activating our knowledge.

If we want to store something in our memory for many years, then we have to activate the knowledge after reading and revise the text afterwards. For activating the knowledge we have to put it into some kind of application. There are several possibilities for doing that:

• Write down the keywords. After completion of the reading take a sheet of paper and take a few minutes to write down keywords, which associate with the text. For example these can be “market share”, “brand” and “advertising channel” if the text is about marketing
• Ask yourself questions about the text? What was the main idea? What did the author want to tell with the text? Which were the key facts?
• Discuss the text with others. If you have to retell the content to other people, then it will help you to store information in your brain. It is extremely efficient to discuss study material with other students, when you are studying for high school or university.
• Draw a mind map. It is a hand written diagram, which visually connects the keywords. You can see an example of a mind map on the picture in this post.

Besides knowledge activation you need to revise the text for remembering it well in the future. Revision is time consuming and I definitely will not suggest you to re-read all kinds of texts. You should revise only these texts, which are most important for you.

If the text is worth it then after you have activated knowledge then you should revise it on the following day. For revision you should not read all the text, but instead of that read through the keywords, answers to the questions or study the mind map, which you did before. In addition you can just quickly review the text. If you notice that you have forgotten some parts of the text then re-read these passages.

7 days after reading spend about 5 minutes thinking about the main points of the text, if you feel that you do not remember something then look the text through again. 2 month afterwards repeat that kind of a revision process.

That kind of revision process guarantees that you can remember the key issues of the text many years after reading it.

kristjan Speed Reading comprehension, memory, revise, studying

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Why do we read different types of texts? In some cases we may do it for having fun, but very often we read for acquiring new knowledge. For example, if you are a high school or colleague student then you have to read lots of books for your studies. If you have finished your studies then you may read for keeping up with the latest development in your profession. Even if you read for your hobbies then the aim may be educating yourself. For example, you may read how to play golf better or how to make apple pie.

It is true that the more you read the more knowledge you will gain. A person who reads lots of books every year has more knowledge than the one who completes only one book per year. The amount of books you will be able to read depends on the amount of time you spend on reading as reading is time consuming. At the same time it depends on the reading speed. If you learn to speed read then you will be able to read much faster and you can read more books. Speed readers usually read quite a lot and thus they are educated people.

But are we reading only for the sake of acquiring new knowledge? In some cases it may be so. We may be interested in French history and we may read lots of books on it even if we are not historians by profession and we do not put this knowledge into practical use. We may do so if we like so. Still, it happens more often that people educate themselves for doing something better in the real life. Lawyers read about new legislation and court cases in order to perform better on their job, teachers read about new teaching methods using them in their classes. Even if you read about making an apple pie then you probably want to try making it in real life.

When new sales agents are being employed in my investment broker company then I will give them a recommended reading list of sales books and websites to read for improving their sales skills. Some of the new agents take it seriously and read a lot, but others do not care so much about it. Still, there is no one-to-one relationship between the amount of sales material read and sales results. Some agents may acquire good theoretical knowledge about the sales process and techniques, but if they do not put these skills into practice then they will not really develop them. In case of sales there has to be lots of practice and it just cannot be only reading.

The same principle holds for many different areas. For example I know some people who have read many books about starting your own business. But they are making no profits because they have never started their own business. There are even players in my soccer team who have read many books about how to play soccer, but they are not the best players.

In order to succeed you have to put your knowledge into practice. If you want to start your own company then you have to do it not just only read and prepare for it. If you want to be a better salesman then you will be better off if you read somewhat less sales books, but use the knowledge from the books in your every day sales work.

I personally have also reduced my reading load during the last year and have focused more on putting my knowledge into practice. I believe it has had positive impact on my progress. Reading itself will not help me to earn money. For earning profits you just have to apply what you have read. And that is the point, what makes difference. In practice, the best results are achieved by the one, who applies his knowledge best, not by the one who has biggest knowledge.

kristjan Speed Reading education, knowledge, reading speed, speed reading

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Different people have different reading speeds. An average person is able to read at 180-250 words per minute, but there are people, who are slower and faster than that. Although there are many factors, which affect the reading speed, on of the most important one of them is reading experience. If you have read more text in your life then you are more experienced reader and you reading speed is likely to be above the average.

Reading experience is linked to the reader’s educational level. Therefore, if you have graduated from university then you have probably read more than the average person. Many college educated people can read at 300 words per minute or even faster. At the same time people, who have not finished high school are typically slow readers, their reading speeds can be below 150 words per minute.

Reading speed depends also on your profession. If you are employed to a job, where you have to read a lot then you will get reading experience from it and therefore your reading speed will be higher. If you are doing only manual work, then it is not going to increase your reading speed. Of course, manual workers can get their reading experience by reading during their leisure time and some of them can still be fast readers.

If reading speed depends on the reading experiences, then could it be that it can be increased by reading more text? Yes, it is true. If you increase your reading load then you are likely to become a faster reader. But is it the most efficient way to increase your reading speed? I would not agree with it.

If you are reading more then you are getting more reading experience and you are increasing your reading speed by learning by doing. You will not consciously improve your reading techniques. You are actually getting better in regular reading methods. But what if you improved your reading technique, wouldn‘t it increase your reading speed more?

If you want to take you reading speed to the next level then you should learn speed reading. It means that you will change your reading habits and learn a set of new reading skills. Learning to speed read means that you will:

• Change your present reading habits. You will have drop reading habits that will slow your reading speed down. Most people have acquired many of them, such as re-reading previously read words.
• Learn more effective reading techniques. Then next step is to learn new methods for increasing your reading speed. You have to learn how to handle the texts, how your eyes should move while reading etc.
• Change your attitude. Most people do not care about how they read. But it makes difference how do you concentrate to the text or in which environment you are reading.
• Develop supportive skills. There are many skills that affect your reading speed such as verbal logic or focusing. If you will improve them then it will give an additional boost to your reading speed.

Most people can double their initial reading speed if they complete a speed reading course and continue practicing individually for at least one month. So reading speeds above 500 words per minute can be reachable for you. At the same time there are very few people, who can read at these speeds without learning speed reading.

kristjan Speed Reading

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If we want to read fast then we have to concentrate to our reading material. Poor concentration will lead to slow reading speed and low comprehension. For achieving good concentration the external environment plays an important role. All kinds of distractions such as incoming phone calls, visitors, noise etc. will disturb us and have a negative effect on our reading performance.

Traditionally, people have been working at the offices and spending leisure time at home. During the recent years, working at home has become an alternative to working at the company’s office. As for many employees their work tasks include a lot of reading, then it leads to a following question: Is the best to read at work or at home?

The answer to that question depends in which environment you have better conditions for interruption free reading. If you have to share your office space with many colleagues then there can be many disturbing factors, which will turn your focus away from the text you read. If you want to do serious reading then finding a quiet place will help a lot. If your office is noisy then you should find another room or go to a library or if the weather is fine to a nearby park for your most demanding reading tasks.

Working at home can offer you more possibilities to spend time together with your family. For example, you can eat lunch with them and you can be with them the time you would spend commuting between work and home. At the same time your family can be also a distraction. You may find it difficult to concentrate to work or have a temptation to make pauses for chatting with them and so on. Kids can be an awfully disturbing factor if they are not taught to not disturb you while working. Some people may find it mentally challenging to get into the working rhythm at home as home reminds them leisure. If you have no co-workers at sight then you may start wasting time on watching TV, cleaning your room etc. Working at home needs good time management habits and self-motivation.

The amount of time you can spend working at home depends on your job. For some jobs there is no possibility for working at home. For some other jobs you can work for the most of the time at home. Although there may be many disturbing factors at the office, there are some benefits of being there. You can get information faster if you are at work instead of being at home. It is easier to ask help from co-workers in the office.

So, finding a balanced between working at home and in the office can be a solution. It may be wise to work some days a week or some hours a day at home. At home you should perform those tasks, which call for individual work and concentration. Many reading tasks belong to this group. If you have to do some research work then it could be more efficiently done at home. For tasks that require active communication with your co-worker it may be better to stay in the office.

I personally work most of the time at home. The people at the university are really very talkative and I try to avoid getting into conversation with many of them as it is clearly a waste of time. I do not have children yet, so it is easy to concentrate to the work at home. I also plan my time carefully and motivate myself to work efficiently, therefore dedicating to work is no problem. In addition, as I spend most of my working time on not university related tasks, then it is also better to do them at home.

kristjan Speed Reading comprehension, concentration, working at home

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Achieving success requires hard work and effort. Nothing will happen overnight and effortless. If you want to get a better job, make more money, loose weight or learn languages then you have to work on it. If you have set clear goals then it will be easier to motivate yourself. But in many cases setting long-term goals is not enough as it takes much time to reach them. There have to be some pleasure moments for you on the road to your success.

It is easier to motivate yourself if you reward yourself after being successful. If your life is only a series of challenges and you have no time to be happy or enjoy your achievement then your mind starts sub-consciously questioning why are you doing all this. This is likely to generate stress and decrease your motivation. How can you reward yourself for success? It can be doing anything that you like in the condition that you have successfully completed a task. Here are some ideas for it:

• Make your favorite dish or buy your favorite food. It can be an apple pie, chocolate cake, grilled turkey or whatever you like the most
• Go to your favorite restaurant or café
• Watch movies form DVD or go to cinema
• Get a book and read it for pleasure
• Listen to your favorite music
• Take a bath
• Go to spa
• Have a manicure and a pedicure
• Try new experiences such as scuba diving or parachute jump
• Have a drink or too but not too much
• Go to the beach (if it is the right season and the weather is fine)
• Go travelling. It must not be a trip to a foreign country, you can just drive to somewhere in the countryside of to the next city
• Buy new clothes

There are many more possibilities for rewarding yourself. Which options do I like the most? I would prefer travelling or spending time together with friends or getting new experiences. I do not like very much buying new shoes or a bigger TV set. Having a party and couple of drinks is also a good option (if you have interesting people to spent time together with you).

By now means, rewarding yourself does not have to be costly. You do not have to fly to Thailand or buy a new Mercedes. But it is important that you will reward yourself only if you have completed a task or achieved desired results. Otherwise it will not motivate yourself to induce effort.

kristjan Speed Reading, time management goals, motivation, reward