Improving Your Reading Speed

Just think of the time that you could save if you read faster. The truth is that most people could read at least as half as fast again and still understand just as well. Slow readers tend to read one word at a time, often mouthing the words. Some read so slowly that by the time they have reached the end of the paragraph, or even a sentence, they might have forgotten how it began.

Here are five ways you can start helping yourself to read faster.

1. Have your eyes tested- many people turn out to need reading glasses for continuous study.
2. Make sure you don't mouth words or say things aloud as you read.
3. Try to read in "thought units" (two or three words at a time) so that your eyes only stop three or four times in a line of print instead of every word.
4. Build up your vocabulary by:
   • Reading widely.
   • Using a dictionary whenever new words crop up in your reading, noting their meaning.
   • (c) Making glossaries of words commonly used in your subjects.
5. Practise reading faster (force yourself) by:
   • Timing your reading of magazine articles of known length and test your recall of the content.
   • Reading all your study materials faster, even if you have to read them more than once. 

The aim is to vary the speed of reading according to the complexity of the material and the purpose for which you are reading it.

If you are simply trying to get the gist of a piece of narrative type writing, you should be able to read two or three times faster than when you are trying to unravel the detailed development of a complex argument. Mostly you will benefit from skimming and/or scanning the material quickly before you read it more intensively.

Don't expect every text to be fully understood the first time of reading. You may have to go through it several times. Several rapid readings will probably give you a clearer understanding than a single painstaking perusal where you try to assimilate all the points made.