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If you want to handle texts efficiently then you cannot only focus to reading speed, but you have to remember what you read. Otherwise there is no point in reading. There exist many methods for improving comprehension. Today I will show you how to use SQ3R. This method was introduced in 1946 by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his book, Effective Study.

SQ3R is a reading method, which includes 5 steps.SQ3R means Survey, Question, Read, Recite  and Review. There are many variation of this method, here I will introduce you the basic version of it. The main point is that you will not just read the text but you will work on it through these five steps. I will explain you how you should do it.

• Survey. Look through the text before starting to read it. It means that you will make a quick preview of it. Search for the headings and subheadings; see what the structure of the text is. If there is an introduction or conclusion then look them trough at fast pace. Do not spend much time on that phase and avoid starting to read paragraphs from the text. You should get only a fast and brief overview of the text, which will help you to comprehend later.
• Question. Before you start reading ask yourself questions about the text. What do you think the text is about? By now you have already gained some information about the text and if you question yourself then it activates your brain for reading. You may write the questions down in order to make this step more efficient.
• Read. Now you are ready for reading the text. Concentrate while reading. The better your focus, the better your comprehension will be.
• Recite. Take a sheet of paper and write down the most important facts and keywords. You should write them in your own words. Rephrase the main ideas. This phase activates your knowledge. If you apply newly acquired information through reciting it then it will significantly improve your comprehension.
• Review. Look at the keywords you have written down. They will reflect the most important information from the text. Try to recall what the linkages between these keywords were. If it comes out that you have forgotten something then you can look it up from the text. You should repeat the review on the next day in order to harden the information. Later you may look through your notes from time to time in order to brush up your memory.

This method allows you to remember texts better. However, following this method will not guarantee that you will get the information from text within the shortest possible time period. SQ3R is not a speed reading method, its primary target is improving comprehension.

However, SQ3R can be combined with speed reading, if you apply speed reading techniques at step 3. Steps 1 and 2 lay a good ground for being able to comprehend well while reading at fast pace.

Not all the texts are worth applying SQ3R. Use this method only for text which you need to remember very well. If you are satisfying with only getting the main points from the text and if you need not remember them far in the future, then SQ3R will be a waste of time.

kristjan Speed Reading comprehension, concentrate, reading method, reading speed, sq3r, texts

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The information available to us increases every day. And we consume more of it every day. How many e-mails do you receive? Many people get 100 or more mails in a single day. How many newspapers do you read? Many people follow 3 or 4 daily newspapers although they read the same news from them. What about journals? How many web pages and blogs you follow? How many RSS feeds do you have? And do you have time to read any books? Isn’t that all too much? And the amount of information available to us will grow everyday.

What could be the solution to that kind of information flood? Many people dream of being able to read faster. They think:”If I could only read faster then I could handle my information flows”. But is it all that simple?

Learning to speed read will allow you to consume information faster. It means that you will be able to read more text per time unit. For example, most people are able to double their reading speed by learning speed reading techniques. So after learning new reading methods the can read twice as many blog posts, e-mails or journal articles in an hour. If they could read 25 pages in one hour in the beginning then they will end up with read in 50 pages per hour.

Will it help you to cope with the information flood? Without any doubt if you can read faster then you will spend less time on reading a given amount of text. The question is that if it will be enough. If the information you want to consume doubles then doubling your reading speed will put you in to the same situation where you were before. But soon the amount of information will double again. Well, if you train yourself really hard then it is possible to increase your reading speed 4 times faster than it was initially, but soon the amount of information will double again. You cannot increase your reading speed without any limits. It is not possible to read 3 pages in one second, but if you still will not be able to read all the texts in the world even if you read at that high speed.

Being a super fast reader is not enough for dealing with the information flood. The question is how to select what to read. You have to admit that you cannot read everything. You have to be selective with reading. Read wiser, not only faster.

Actually speed reading is not only about mechanically increasing your reading speed. Although all speed reading courses focus on increasing your reading speed for completing a given text, many of them will teach you how to select your reading material. There are many techniques how to preview texts, how to set goals for reading and decide quickly what to read and what to skip. Even if you make a decision to read a text then you do not have to read it from the beginning to the end always. Actually there are not so many texts, which are worth reading completely.

It may seem to us that there is so much to read out there, especially if we think about web pages or blogs. But in fact, many of them do not contain so valuable information. Reading more does not make you automatically wiser. Think how people were living 100 years ago. They consumed much less information, but were they so much less educated then? I do not think so, they just consumed smaller amounts, but more valuable information. Nowadays there is too much fluff out there, especially on the web.

kristjan Speed Reading blogs, information flood, reading speed, speed reading techniques, texts, web pages