Read faster one word at a time

Most of us learn to read one—word—at—a—time. If you want to read faster, a better strategy is to read words in clusters, groups of three or four words you can read at a glance. It takes regular practice to do this, but Bill Cosby offers the instructions to learn this speed reading method.

(Yes, that Bill Cosby, the TV personality who also has a doctorate in education and has done work in effective reading techniques.)

Brain Pickings highlights an essay Cosby wrote, called «How to Read Faster,» which offers three strategies for faster reading. In addition to previewing and skimming the material, you can learn to cluster words. This not only increases your reading speed, it’s also supposed to improve reading comprehension. The illustration above is how Cosby would cluster that text. For each cluster, he sees all of the words at once at a glance.

Here’s how to use clustering:

Learning to read clusters is not something your eyes do naturally. It takes constant practice.

Here’s how to go about it: Pick something light to read. Read it as fast as you can. Concentrate on seeing three to four words at once rather than one word at a time. Then reread the piece at your normal speed to see what you missed the first time.

Try a second piece. First cluster, then reread to see what you missed in this one.

When you can read in clusters without missing much the first time, your speed has increased. Practice fifteen minutes every day and you might pick up the technique in a week or so. (But don’t be disappointed if it takes longer. Clustering everything takes time and practice.

Check out the full article for more speed reading techniques, some of which we discussed before for getting through our backlog of books.

How to Read Faster: Bill Cosby’s Three Proven Strategies | Brain Pickings

Do you have a lot of paperwork to get through with a deadline that continues to stalk you around every corner? Do you have a lot of reading to do? Do you simply just want to read at a faster rate, whether it be for your own personal reasons, or for work?

On average, an adult can read somewhere between 200 to 300 words per minute. With speed reading skills, you can read much faster—around 1500 words per minute.^[1] Yes, that sounds impossible, but it’s true.

If you’re wondering how to read faster so you can get more done quickly, these speed-reading tips are for you.

What Is Speed Reading?

In order to understand how speed reading works, you first need to know how the reading process works inside a human’s brain.

The Reading Process

The first step is for the eyes to look at a word. This “fixation” on every word takes around 0.25 seconds.

Next, you start moving your eyes to the following word. It takes 0.1 seconds for the brain to move from one word to the next. This is called “saccade.”

Usually, you take in 4-5 words in your head, or a sentence, at once. After all the fixations and saccades, the brain goes over the entire phrase again in order to process the meaning. This takes around half a second.

All in all, this means average people read 200 to 300 words in a minute.

Speeding up the Process

The concept of speed reading is to speed up this process by at least 5 times. Since the saccade period cannot be shortened any further, speed reading emphasizes quicker fixations.

To accomplish this, scientists recommend that the reader skips the sub-vocalization: when the readers actually say the word in their mind, even when reading silently.

Basically, speed reading is the technique of only seeing the words instead of speaking them silently.

Do not confuse this with skimming. When a reader skims through a text, they skip the parts that their brain considers to be unnecessary. You may skip important information in this process, and skimming does not allow the brain to retain what has been read.

Why Speed Read?

Speed reading is not just quick, but it’s also effective. This skill saves a lot of of time without sacrificing information.

Also, it has been proven to improve memory. The brain’s performance improves during speed reading, which allows the reader to remember more information than before^[2].

Since speed reading stabilizes the brain, the information is processed faster and more efficiently.

Believe it or not, this technique leads to improved focus, too. As the brain receives a lot of information during speed reading, there is far less chance of distraction. The brain focuses solely on the job at hand.

Since the brain is, after all, a muscle, the process of speed reading acts as an exercise. Just like the rest of your muscles, your brain needs exercise to grow stronger, too.

A focused brain means improved logical thinking. As your brain gets used to receiving and organizing so much information so quickly, your thinking process will become faster. As soon as a problem is thrown at you, your brain will quickly put two and two together. You will be able to retrieve stored information, figure out correlations, and come up with new solutions, all within seconds!

With a healthier brain, you can expect better things in other parts of your life, too. A boost in self-esteem is just one of them.

As you begin to understand information at a faster pace, you will also begin to figure out more opportunities all around you.

With the ability to deeply understand information in a shorter period of time, your confidence levels will quickly grow.

Moreover, all the aforementioned benefits will relieve you of stress. With all these advantages, your emotional well-being will be healthier than ever. You’ll feel less stress since your brain will learn to tackle problems efficiently. Speed reading will lead to a relaxed, tension-free lifestyle!

11 Ways to Help You Read Faster

Here are 11 proven ways to help increase your reading speed.

1. Stop the Inner Monologue

One’s inner monologue, also known as subvocalization, is an extremely common trait among readers. It is the process of speaking the words in your head as you read, and it is the biggest obstacle that gets in the way of you being able to increase your reading speed.

If you’re hearing voices in your head when you’re reading, don’t fret. As long as it is your own voice, reading along with you, you’re fine. In fact, this is how teachers teach kids to read – say the words silently in your head as you read.

Do you recall the instructions, “Read in your head, as I read the passage aloud”, that were said fairly often in the classrooms? That is one of the ways in which this habit of having an inner monologue was ingrained into you as a young reader.

When you were initially taught to read, you were taught to sound out everything and read aloud. Once you were proficient enough at that, your teacher had you start saying the words in your head. This is how the habit originated, and most people continue reading this way. It does not adversely affect them in any way, until they start wanting to read at a faster pace. If you are seeking to increase your reading speed, this is the first thing you must learn to overcome.

Why does this slow you down? The average reading speed is pretty much the same as the average talking speed. According to Forbes, the average adult reading speed is 300 words per minute.^[3]
The average talking speed is the same.

Since most people are in the habit of saying the words aloud in their head as they read, they tend to read around the same pace as they talk. This means, your reading speed will only increase so much if you continue to keep up that inner monologue. If you want to continue to increase your reading speed, you need to eliminate it.

To do this, you need to understand one thing: It’s unnecessary. You do not need to say every word in your head in order to understand the material you are reading. It was when you are younger, but now you are able to input the meaning from just seeing the words. Your brain still processes the information.

For example, when you see a “YIELD” sign, do you actually stop to speak the word in your head? Of course not. You just look at it and process it automatically. This is what you need to be doing when you read your print material, such as books or paperwork.

If you have a hard time attempting this, try reading with instrumental music playing in headphones or chew on some gum. A distraction will keep your brain less focused on subvocalization, though you will still look at the words and process them.

2. Word–Chunking

Word-chunking closely parallels with the idea of eliminating the inner monologue. This is the act of reading multiple words at once, and is the key to reading faster. All of these reading tips tie together, yet word-chunking is probably the most active tool to use when you work to increase your reading speed.

A person can take in several words at a time, even though we are trained – as mentioned with the inner monologue – to read each word at a time and not miss a single article. Using your peripheral vision is one way to make this step easier, but we will get to that in the next section.

For now, focus on trying to read three words with one glance. Continue on down the page like that, taking note of how much faster you complete the entire page of text. You are still able to process and comprehend what you read, but spend far less time doing it.

Now, take that concept one step further. Take a pencil and lightly draw two vertical, parallel lines down your page, separating the text into three sections. Start at the top left of the page as usual, and cover up everything below that line with your hand or a piece of paper.

Focus on reading the text in each section as one thing. Chunk the words together, and read them at a glance as you would a road sign. Keep doing this down the page, moving the paper accordingly. You will notice that your speed was faster than before.

Continue with this method until you feel comfortable enough to challenge yourself a bit more.

3. Do Not Reread the Words on the Page

Before we move on to the peripheral vision part – that’s the real kicker – you’re going to want to make sure you break the habit of rereading the words on the page.

If you watch the average person’s eyes as they read, you will notice they jump and flit about. They do not just flow evenly back and forth, as they should. This is because the average person – you do this, too – tends to backtrack over words they have already read. This is one thing that prevents you from being able to increase your reading speed.

You most likely do this without even realizing that you are doing it, which makes it a bit of a tricky habit to break out of. The easiest way, even though you may feel a bit childish, is to use your finger or bookmark to guide you along.

Keep your finger running back and forth across the page, without stopping or going back. Keep tracking the words as your finger continues to make its way down the text. When you get to the end, think about what you read. You did not go back over a single word (I hope!), and yet you still recall what you have read.

4. Use Peripheral Vision

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the key step that really ties everything together. While this may not be the final step, it’s certainly a critical one.

Use the techniques from everything above to view and comprehend several words at one time. Instead of chunking in smaller groups of words, try reading one line at a time. This involves looking at the center of the line, and using your peripheral vision to read the rest of it. Scan the page in this manner and, when you reach the bottom, you will find that you still understood what you read, but you did it in record time.

5. Use a Timer

Speaking of ‘record time’, now is your chance to test yourself and work on how to increase your reading speed each time you read. Set a timer for one minute, reading normally as the time dwindles down. When the timer goes off, note how many pages you have read.

The website, WordstoPages, will help you to figure out how many words you have read. Now, combine everything you have learned and repeat the test. Jot down that number, too.

Keep doing this, continuing to beat your previous count each time. Set a daily or weekly goal, and treat yourself when you reach it. Continue with this little game, and you’ll be able to increase your reading speed in no time!

6. Set a Goal

Holding yourself accountable will better ensure you stick with your reading and your timer tests. Give yourself a goal of a certain number of pages to read each day/week/etc., and stick to it. When you reach it, treat yourself. Incentive never hurt anyone!

7. Read MORE

The old adage, “Practice makes perfect,” is actually pretty darn accurate. Any professional, artist, musician, etc. practices their work regularly.

A reader should be doing the same thing. The more you read, the more you will be better at it. The better you are at reading, the more you will increase your reading speed.

Theodore Roosevelt read one book before breakfast, and then three or four more in the evening. He also read papers and other such pamphlet-style reading material. I’m not sure how long these books were, but I am going to assume they were of average length. Use his obsession as fuel for your own goal.

8. Use a Marker

Do you find your vision slipping and sliding through the page as you read? Not a problem. Simply place an index card below each line, and slip it down as you read. This will ensure you stay at reading one line at a time, rather than flitting your eyes about and taking nothing in.

9. Work on Improving Your Vocabulary

Think about it: You’re reading along, and then you run into a word you don’t know. Do you skip it? Do you try to figure it out by context? Do you stop to look it up? Whichever course of action you take, you are slowing your time significantly, if not stopping it all together to go and look up the retarding word.

If you work on improving your vocabulary, you will know more words. The more words you add to your repertoire, the faster you read. The faster you read, the more you can read. It may be self-evident, but it’s important.

10. Skim the Main Points FIRST

Finally, when you’re in a real time-crunch and need to get something read by yesterday, take a deep breath and calm down. Open the book, and take some time reading over all the main points. Read the table of contents. Read the subtitles. Read the captions under the diagrams. Get an overall feel for the chapter/section/etc..

Next, read the first paragraph of each main section. Read the last. Read the middle. Think this over in your head, and piece it together.

11. Read with a Purpose

Do you have a goal before starting to read a book?

Whether it’s to find out how a story goes, learn a new skill, or get some answers, keep that goal in your mind while reading. When you read with a clear goal or purpose, this pushes you to keep on reading.

Especially when you’re reading a self-help book, having some background questions can help you get your answers or insights more quickly.

Find out more about this in my article Reading With Purpose Can Change Your Life.

Final Thoughts

Start reading while employing the techniques we have just discussed. You’ll retain your information better, as well as your get your reading done faster.

The next time you need to read something quickly, simply tell yourself to “Shut up and look at the page!”

Featured photo credit: Blaz Photo via unsplash.com

About 2 million books get published every year in the world. The indexed web contains at least 5.75 billion pages. So much to read, so little time. In a world obsessed with speed and productivity at all costs, it’s no surprise that someone came up with a solution. It’s called speed reading, and its promise is to help anyone read at speeds of above 1000 words per minute—much higher than the 200-400 words per minute achieved by the average college-level reader. Sounds fantastic. The problem? It’s completely bogus.

Many speed reading programs sell the dream of being able to read much faster with full comprehension. The first one, called Reading Dynamics, was launched by Evelyn Wood in 1959. A researcher and schoolteacher, Wood created and marketed a system said to increase a reader’s speed by a factor of three to ten times or more, while preserving—and even improving—comprehension. The business was a success: it eventually had 150 outlets in the United States, 30 in Canada, and many others worldwide. Today, many apps are built on the same promise.

The fact that President John F. Kennedy mentioned in an interview that he taught himself speed reading and was able to read up to 1,200 words per minute probably helped make the practice popular. Subsequent presidents also enrolled in speed reading courses over the next decades. It’s easy to understand the allure of speed reading. Who wouldn’t want to be able to read and retain more content?

The science of reading

Lots of the vocabulary used to describe how speed reading works may make it sound like science. Speed reading uses methods such as chunking, scanning, reducing subvocalisation and using meta guiding to read faster. For example, reading the first sentence of each paragraph to determine whether it’s worth seeking more details, or better to move on. Or visually guiding your eyes using your finger, so your eyes move faster along the length of the passage of text.

Fortunately, some researchers spent time looking into speed reading to understand whether it worked or not. A study conducted by scientists from the University of California, MIT and Washington University found that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy.

First, let’s look at how reading itself works. When we read, our eyes very briefly fixate on a portion of text, and then move on to another portion. This movement is called a saccade. A saccade happens very quickly, lasting only 25 to 30 milliseconds. Our eyes are designed in a way that only lets us see a tiny portion of our visual field with the precision necessary to recognise letters in a 10 to 12 point font, which is what you’ll find in most printed books. Everything outside of that tiny area is blurry. So the idea promoted by speed reading that we can use our peripheral vision to grasp whole sentences in one go is just… Biologically impossible.

While the average saccade is very short, we sometimes spend more time fixated on a specific portion of the text. In speed reading, this is considered a bad habit which can be eradicated with practice. In reality, longer fixation times are linked to difficulties in understanding the content. You basically spend more time looking at a word if you’re struggling to grasp the concept behind it. And it’s a good thing: this is the way you give time to your brain to process the information you’re looking at.

Another bad habit that speed reading tries to fix is what is called regressions. While we spend most of our time reading “forward”, our eyes often go back to previously read portions of text. This happens between 10% and 15% of the time we read. Far from being a bad habit, this is also a way for our brain to link the content together. In fact, most apps you’ll see that help you read faster by showing you one word at a time—this is called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation or RSVP—have a terrible impact on overall comprehension. Sure, you read the words, but you won’t really understand the content and will probably retain next to nothing.

The only thing speed reading can help you do is to skim the content you read. Of course, it’s very helpful sometimes to be able to skim something, but to say that speed reading will help you read faster and retain more of what you read is a blatant lie. So how can you become a faster reader?

The three types of reading

Not all reading methods will result in the same speed. There are three main ways of consuming content, with significant differences in reading speed.

1. Mental reading. This is when you sound out each word internally, as if you were reading to yourself. This is the slowest form of reading, with an average of 250 words per minute. Try re-reading this paragraph in your head by clearly sounding out each word in your head. This is also called subvocalisation or silent speech.
2. Auditory reading. That’s what’s happening every time you listen to an audiobook and hear out the words. This is a faster process compared to mental reading, at about 450 words per minute on average.
3. Visual reading. I couldn’t find a lot of recent research about this one—a paper that kept on coming up is from 1900—but visual reading is when you understand the meaning of the words without sounding them out or hearing them. It’s supposed to be like having the images popping up in your head as you read the content, with an increased reading speed of 700 words per minute.

Understanding what reading style suits you better will help you consume content faster. But, ultimately, there’s no magic bullet and no special training you can take that will make you read much faster than the average words per minute without being detrimental to your comprehension. And what’s the point of reading a lot if you don’t understand or remember anything?

The case for slow reading

Instead of trying to optimise for speed, we should optimise for comprehension and retention. It’s better to read fewer books which will improve your thinking than to collect a long list of titles you can claim to have read without any deep thinking to show for it.

• Slow reading reduces stress. Getting at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted slow reading will have a positive impact on your anxiety. It also means putting away your phone for a while, which has a host of other benefits.
• It may help you read more. While speed readers optimise for productivity, slow readers take the time to enjoy what they read. This often means more time spent reading books rather than a super fast 15-minute reading session on a commute.
• It will improve your learning. Taking the time to read something will help your brain make useful connections between current and past content. I wrote before about how you can remember more of what you read, and speed reading is definitely not on the list.

Slow reading doesn’t have to wait, but it is better if it’s scheduled. Blocking chunks of time dedicated to deep focus on a book is one of the best investments you can make for your mind. Instead of trying to read faster, strive to read better.

Whether you’re a student in school or a student of life, the ability to read and learn is a key skill.

Harry Truman said,

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”

Warren Buffet said,

“Read 500 pages…every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

Walt Disney said,

“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.”

Unfortunately, our school system doesn’t teach us how to read effectively. As a teacher, I know many students often complain about having too much reading to do.

That’s why I decided to take the Kwik Reading course from Jim Kwik, a world-renowned brain coach. The program taught me how to read faster while also increasing comprehension. I sure wish I had taken this program when I was a student!

In this article, I summarize the key things I learned to help you improve your reading speed and comprehension.

Key Ideas:

1. Think FAST

2. Use a Visual Pacer

3. Indent

4. Reduce Eye Fixations

5. Reduce Subvocalization

6. Practice the 4-3-2-1 Speed Drill

7. Skim Before Reading

8. Ask Questions Before Reading

The first six key ideas are for increasing reading speed. The last two are for increasing comprehension. Many people think reading faster automatically means reduced comprehension, but that’s false. When we read faster properly, we have more focus, which means our comprehension actually increases.

Key Idea 1: Think FAST

Fast means forget, active, state, and teach.

Forget: When reading, we need to forget about our distractions and focus on reading. We also need to forget our limitations (like “Oh I’m not a fast reader”).

Active: We should read with energy. To increase our reading speed, we need to practice daily, just like going to the gym.

State (emotion): The fastest learners are children, and it’s because they bring a great state towards learning. We need to bring out a state of excitement, wonder, and interest to learn faster and better.

Teach: When you learn with the intention of teaching, you pay more careful attention. When you teach, you get to clarify your understanding. If you have no one to teach, talk to your wall.

Key Idea 2: Use a Visual Pacer

The two common visual pacers are a pen or your index finger. Have you ever noticed that children naturally use their finger to follow along the words on a page when they first learn to ready? It’s a great thing to do because it helps our eyes focus and not get lost on the page. If we get lost, we end up having to go back and re-read things, which greatly slows down our reading speed.

A couple tips on using visual pacers:

1. Instead of bending your finger along the page, move your whole arm. That’s less tiring.

2. Don’t bend your body down to read a book flat on the table. Instead, sit upright and tilt the book. When you sit upright, your lungs can open, so you can breathe better and be more focused.

Key Idea 3: Indent

Most people when they read, the go from the very left of the line to the very right. But we have peripheral vision. That means we can start a little bit away from the left and end a little bit away from the right. That will increase your reading speed.

Example:

The more you practice using your peripheral vision, the better it gets, which means you can indent even more with practice.

To improve our peripheral vision, we can use put our index finger out in front of our nose, and then trace the ∞ symbol. Use your eyes to follow your finger without moving your head. Jim Kwik recommends we do that for a minute before reading to warm up our peripheral vision.

Key Idea 4: Eye Fixations

Most people drag their finger along the entire line and read each word in the line. This results in our eyes making many stops or “fixations” along the line. Each stop takes time. To increase our reading speed, we can reduce the number of stops by using our peripheral vision. In other words, we don’t need to read one word at a time. We can train ourselves to see and read groups of words at a time.

For example, when we see the word “hot dog”, we don’t need to think “oh hot and dog together is the food that people eat.” We automatically see it as one word. The same can be said for “New York City”. We don’t read the three words separately; we see it as one word. With practice, we can learn to see groups of words all the time.

In order to practice this, simply take your book page and divide equally using 3 or 4 lines depending on how wide your page is.

Here is an example:

Put three dots at the top of your page to divide the page into equal thirds. Then imagine vertical lines from those dots all the way down. Then when you use your finger, don’t drag along the whole line. Instead, jump to those three dots. This limits your fixations to just three stops.

Key Idea 5: Reduce Subvocalization

Subvocalization is your inner voice reading to yourself. If you have to say each of the words, then your reading speed is limited to your talking speed instead of your thinking speed. Speed readers who can read 600+ words per minute have little subvocalization.

You don’t have to pronounce words to understand them. 95% of words are sight words, which means you know them by sight not sound. Also, a lot of words are just filler words (e.g., and, there, the). As your reading speed gets faster, you will want to reduce subvocalization.

One technique to reduce subvocalization is to say “1-2-3” while reading. You can say it inside of your head or out loud. At the beginning, it’ll be hard, and your comprehension will drop. But with practice, you’ll get used to it. Jim Kwik said this technique is optional since when we start speeding up the reading, subvocalization will naturally reduce.

You will never totally eliminate subvocalization, nor do you necessarily want to. It’s also appropriate to subvocalize if you are reading information that is unfamiliar to you or if it’s really technical information. For example, students reading a textbook will probably find it appropriate to slow down and subvocalize when they come across important information.

Key Idea 6: Practice the 4-3-2-1 Drill

For muscle growth, we have to stretch and stabilize. Same for our reading skills. The 4-3-2-1 drill is like lifting weights for your reading muscle. Here’s how it works.

First, read your book for 4 minutes. Mark where you started and ended. That’s your running track. We’re going to run that track 3 more times.

Second, re-read that same track, but this time, finish it in 3 minutes. It’s fine for comprehension to drop. We’re practicing speed.

Third, re-read that same track, but this time, finish it in 2 minutes. Keep using your finger as a visual pacer. You have permission to skip lines.

Fourth, re-read that same track, but this time, finish it in 1 minute. Again, your eyes must follow your finger, and your finger must cross that finish line in 1 minute. It’s essentially scanning not reading, but that’s fine. We’re training your mind to not just read faster but also think faster.

After doing this 4-3-2-1 drill, you can go back to reading as “normal”, but what you’ll notice is that your normal speed is much faster than before you did the 4-3-2-1 drill. Your reading muscles got stronger.

This exercise is the main exercise we need to practice to greatly improve our reading speed. In the 21-day reading program, Jim Kwik had students practice it daily.

Key Idea 7: Skim Before Reading

Some researchers conduced a study where one group read something twice, while another group skimmed and then read it. Can you guess which group did better on a test? The group who skimmed first! Why?

1. Skimming lets you get an overview first

2. When you skim, you don’t get all the answers you want. You get confused. You ask questions. Then when you read it, you find all the answers.

When we skim, we want to create confusion and even panic in our minds. Then when you read it, you will find answers. This also saves time compared to reading something twice.

Ways to Skim:

1. Take your finger and just go right down through the page. You miss a lot of peripheral vision but you get the key words.

2. Use your finger and go through a Z or S shape on the page.

3. Read 1 line forward then 1 line backward.

When skimming, you can look at the pictures, diagrams, subtitles, and keywords. These will help raise questions in your head. Skimming should be very, very fast. If you skim too slow, it becomes reading not skimming.

Key Idea 8: Ask Questions Before Reading

When you skim, you’ll naturally think of some questions. Skim through all the pictures first. You might ask yourself what those pictures are about.

Look at all the headings. You can turn headings into questions. For example, if a heading says “Photosynthesis”, you might ask, “What is photosynthesis? Why should I care?”

If you’re a student and the teacher assigned you a reading, the teacher probably also assigned reading questions. Read through all the questions first. Skim through the reading and have a guess and where the answers might be.

Then, when you read, you will be more focused because you’re looking for answers as opposed to just trying to ingest everything on the page.

If you’re not sure what questions to ask, here are some good questions you can always ask when reading non-fiction:

1. Why did the author write this book? (when reading the introduction)

2. What are the main ideas here?

3. How can this be useful in my life?

Summary Video

Although I took a paid-course on speed reading, there’s actually a great 9-minute video by Tim Ferriss on how to speed read. It talks about most of the things I learned in the course.

Conclusion

Reading is a skill. If you know the proper technique, you can get better instantly. Some easy techniques are to use your finger, indent, and reduce eye fixations.

Reading is also like a muscle. If you work out a muscle, it becomes stronger. You can work out your reading muscle using the 4-3-2-1 drill once a day.

To improve your reading comprehension, skim beforehand and note down some questions.

Now that you know how to read better, the most important thing is to go and practice! Once you see your reading ability improve, I hope you will enjoy reading and be a life long learner.

As Dr. Seuss said,

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”