Reading speed
Read faster and save time

This is the second part of an article on reading speed.  If you'd like to read the first part then please click on reading speed: primer.

Pointer

The first part of learning to develop speed reading skills is using a pointer as you read.  Use a pen or pencil (or your finger) and move this pointer over the words you are reading.  This will speed up the way that you read text.  Go ahead and try it now.  Get some text and read it with a pointer.

The pointer encourages your brain to focus on the page.  It is simple for your eyes to follow and it ensures that you remain at a constant pace.

Try using a pointer like this for a couple of days before trying the next part of improving your speed reading.

Multiple Words

Using a pointer on its own is not sufficient to really improve your reading speed instead you need to take in more than one word at a time.  You might think this is very difficult to achieve but you’d be surprised at how much information you take in.  Try reading the following

This is 18 words.  The original sentence (see the original speed test) is 41 words.  Over twice as many words.  If you are like most people you’ll understand the second sentence as clearly as the original sentence.  Your brain fills in the missing words.  Most of the time it gets them right!

Knowing that you don’t need to read every word opens up the road to speed reading.  Instead of trying to read every word you should try to read about every fourth word.  So if a sentence is about 20 words long you should pick out 5 words during that sentence.

I pick 20 words since this is often the number across a page in a book or the page of a document.  Try it now.  Simply use your pointer to tap five times equally spaced across a page.  Move to the next line and do the same.  Keep going to the end of the paragraph.

Next Steps

Now you’re speed reading.  What actually happens is your brain takes in groups of words rather than single words even although you don’t realise it is happening.

Incidentally if you are worried about missing words or losing meaning you’ll actually find that this way of reading is more effective at information retention.  You can try it quite easily.  Simply read a passage normally and then try to remember things about it. Then try it the speed reading way.  You’ll find you retained more information.  You can actually carry out formal tests to prove this but for now try it subjectively.

Now you have the basics you need to practise.  Try reading everything you can by speed reading.  After a while you’ll find that five taps across a page is too many and you’ll switch to three taps.    Over time and with practise you’ll read double and treble your current reading speed.

If you’ve any thoughts you’d like to share on this reading speed tutorial please email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .