Have you ever wondered how much time do you spend reading every day? Starting with a newspaper in the morning to e-mails, proposals, and reports at office, you probably have to assimilate a large amount of information in a day. Though this may not be a problem for a person who can read fast, but for slow readers this certainly is a big issue. If you cannot read fast, you may spend your entire day reading the information presented to you. In order to improve your efficiency, you should acquire the skill of reading fast using techniques.
This will help you to read and comprehend a large amount of information in short time, which eventually will help you manage your time well.
Speed Reading Techniques
* Read in a Peaceful Environment: Avoid distractions, like television and music, during reading. Though many people can easily read even when the television is on and kids are playing around, but you probably can read faster if you read in peaceful surroundings. When there are no distractions, you can concentrate better, which helps you in reading and understanding easily and quickly.
* Scan The Content: It is not essential to read each and every word. Before you start reading a book or an article, you should quickly scan it, for example, you should check its heading and bullet points. This will help you identify if the material is worth reading. If yes, what are the important points that you should go through carefully. This technique can save a lot of time.
* Do Not Re-Read: Many people have the habit of re-reading words and sentences to make sure that they get the actual meaning. This should be best avoided. Not only you end up wasting time on re-reading, but also the flow of it gets disrupted, which slows down your reading speed. If it is difficult for you to give up this habit, you should cover the lines you have read with a piece of paper or card to make sure that you do not re-read them.
* Read A Block Of Words At A Time: Slow readers have the habit of focusing on only one word at a time. Instead of looking at a single word, you should look at a block of three or four words at a time. This technique can help you read faster by up to 50 percent.
* Avoid Sub-Vocalization: Sub-vocalization means pronouncing the words after you have read them. Some people move their lips whereas some pronounce the words in their minds. Pronouncing every word you read reduces your speed. One of the best ways to overcome this habit is to read a group of words at a time rather than reading the content word by word.
Though the given techniques can improve your reading efficiency drastically, but you should not expect to see the results overnight. It is an art that requires some time to master.
Practice and patience are the keywords that will help you succeed.