Speed Reading (wip)

I am currently 8 days into a 21 day speed reading course. These are my notes.

The goals for "speed reading" are:

• Improve speed
• Improve comprehension
• Become skilled at modulating speed/comprehension

Speed

Improving speed, thus far, is a matter of technique.

It is important to practice the techniques without putting too much emphasis on comprehension. Comprehension will come as the technique becomes more automatic.

Using your finger, a pen, etc. trace below the lines as you read them. Hover above the page rather than touching it. When starting out, trace from margin to margin.

Look at the page straight on for best text clarity.

Part of the reason a pointer improves speed is because it prevents regression and back-skipping.

After 3-4 days of getting used to using a pacer, start indenting your pacer 1" on each side. In other words, start about 3 words into the line, and go to the next 3 words before the end.

This employs your peripheral vision to speed things up further. While inexperienced readers read letter by letter or word by word, more experienced readers can understand chunks of words.

An enemy of speed is sub-vocalization. It is not inherently bad. It is natural to do sometimes. But sub-vocalizing means you can never read faster than you can speak, and you can think faster than you speak.

As a drill, for 3 minutes try reading while repeating in your head or out loud "1-2-3". You can also try humming.

Comprehension

When information comes too slowly your brain can get bored. By reading faster you can actually improve focus.

Other ways to improve focus include sitting up straight and breathing into your diaphragm, ensuring you get enough oxygen. The bottom 1/3 of your lungs provide 2/3 of the oxygen.

A technique that may help with focus is the infinity technique. You very slowly trace an infinity in front of your face and track it with your eyes. Do this as a warmup for 2 minutes before speed reading.

Reading is a generally left brain dominant activity. Logical, reasoning, etc. By using your left hand as your pacer, as well as using your left hand throughout the day instead of your right hand you can activate your right brain (right brain <=> left side of body) more and have a stronger emotional and feeling connection to what you're reading.

Modulating Speed/Comprehension

You want to be able to modulate your speed and comprehension to suit the material. This applies not only at the book level (or article, etc.), but also within a single page or paragraph.

General Notes

Getting better requires consistent practice. 10 minutes a day is enough to start.

Doing the techniques will probably feel wonky at first, but that discomfort means you are stretching yourself and growing.