Reading more than 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

The world’s fastest reader record belongs to Howard Stephen Berg, popularly referred to as Speedy Berg. He read over 25,000 words per minute in 1990 and set the record at 80 pages per minute.

Have you ever wondered if you could read a 1000-page textbook in a day? 

Well, it’s normal to think you’re not up to the task, but you can read more than a thousand pages in a day.

If Howard Stephen Berg could do this, you could also read as fast and faster than he did. 

But to read faster, you have to know the fastest readers, the process they followed, and some tips on the steps they took.

This article explores the tips that will help you become an excellent speed reader. Read on to set yourself on the track of beating Howard Berg to his record.

How can the fastest reader read 25000 words per minute?

Howard Stephen Berg reached the 25000 words per minute reading speed by scanning without the inner monologue or rereading, chunking words, and using markers.

Speed reading is not natural. It takes a lot of practice, dedication, and consistency to reach high-speed reading.

Let’s dive deeper into the secrets to speed reading.

But first, let’s determine your current reading speed. 

If you’re on your way to increasing your reading speed, you have to keep track of changes and your progress. 

Here’s how to determine how fast you can read.

Pick a book and set a timer (about 5 to 10 minutes). Start reading the texts in the book while you set your timer. Once the set time elapses, stop reading and check the number of words you read. 

Now divide the words by the number of minutes you set on your timer to know your reading speed.

If you set your timer to 10 minutes and read 2000 words within the timeframe, your reading rate will be 200 words per minute. 

It’s no big deal if your reading speed is less than this. You’ll be able to improve after reading this article and practice well.

Know how to scan

Scanning is one of the most important skills you will need when trying to increase your reading speed. 

When reading, you should scan through the text in each sentence while omitting some words. You should only focus on the first and last sentence of the paragraph. You should also focus on the verbs and nouns of the sentence, as they will give you enough information about the paragraph.

Howard Berg says the first sentence tells you what to expect in a paragraph, and the last sentence confirms what happened in the paragraph. 

Are you wondering why your reading is so slow? Not being able to scan is one of the reasons.

When we were younger, we were taught to pay attention to every word while we read. Paying attention to every word makes scanning tricky, but learning to scan through a text can increase your speed while reading.

The mind has a magical way of filling gaps when reading a text. You can leverage this when reading to increase your reading speed. 

Scanning will reduce the time you spend reading the text, thereby increasing your reading speed.

Reduce the inner monologue 

If you want to read very fast, you have to stop the inner monologue. It refers to speaking words in your head while reading a text. To reduce this, you have to process the words in pictures, like a movie.

As Howard scans through a book, he creates visual representations of the words’ meanings in his head. Basically, he reads sentences as if watching a movie. 

After reading, he does not remember the words. Instead, he remembers the pictures that he created in his mind.

When reading a sentence, instead of repeating every word in your head, you should strive to process the words in images. 

It‘s easier to remember the text as you only need to revisit the movie that you created in your head.

Read words in chunks

Your eyes can take in about 1.5 inches of text at a glance. You can read 5 to 10 words at a glance, so you should utilize this eye function to your advantage. Read more than one word at a time and assimilate them to increase the number of words you will read within a time frame.

Word chunking is an essential tool you should use if you want to read at high speed.

To perform word chunking, you will need to break each sentence into chunks. These chunks might come in phrases, individual text pieces, or groups of text pieces. So, instead of reading 15 words in a sentence, you read 3 groups of 5 words.

The chunks will pass specific information, giving you the details in each sentence. 

It is similar to how you read phone numbers in small chunks to make it easier instead of calling the numbers singly.

Plus, if you read a word at a time, it will take you a long time to read a 50-word text than when you read multiple words at a time. 

You can train yourself to read chunks using our free speed reading tool, AccelaReader. With this tool, you set the number of words per chunk and the speed of flashing the chunks on the screen.

Avoid rereading words

It will take a conscious effort and practice before you can stop rereading entirely. Pick a text and read the text without rereading them. Now try to understand what you read. 

You will be surprised to see you can remember the text even without rereading it. Keep on trying and notice some improvements in your reading skills.

It’s a common practice to reread words to assimilate them. Rereading words will take your time, and the difficult part is that you won’t notice you are rereading them because it is something you do regularly.

Use markers, trackers, or pacers

Markers are one of the ways you can keep track of the text as you scan. It is easy to lose track, especially if you are just learning to speed read. You will need a marker to keep you on track while reading the text at high speed.

You can use a pencil or an index card, placing it under the text you’re reading. It will ensure you read one line at a time and don’t slip. It will also help you keep your eyes on the text rather than flitting and not taking anything.

Set your goals

Setting goals is one of the essential parts of speed reading. You need to create a plan for yourself on how well you want to increase your reading speed.

It is one of the reasons you need to check your initial read speed. It will help you keep track of your reading success.

You can get a timer while practicing to ensure a perfect practice. You can also make use of speed reading courses. Set higher goals as you keep improving on your reading speed.

Does the fastest reader remember what he reads?

The fastest reader, Howard Stephen Berg, reads over 25,000 words in a minute and remembers them well. 

You can also read at this rate and a faster one and still remember what you read. 

Here are some simple tips that will help you with that.

Create an impression of the words you read

The impression is one of the ways you can retain and remember what you have read. As you are reading the text, subconsciously create a scene or picture in your mind. You will be able to remember the text when you remember the picture.

Associate the words with familiar things

Associate the text with something you know already. It will help you remember what you read easily. This is quite simple, but you have to be fast with the reading and association.

You can also check more on how to increase your retention while speed reading. Or take a course that teaches you how to improve your memory.

Conclusion

Reading fast is not something you get to achieve in a day. Howard Stephen Berg did not start and accomplish his reading values in a day. He practiced, followed steps, took tips, and turned out to be the fastest reader. 

If you want to read faster, consider taking our speed reading courses. And if you want to couple that with retention, consider our maximizing memory course.

Speed reading is any of many techniques claiming to improve one’s ability to read quickly. Speed-reading methods include chunking and minimizing subvocalization. The many available speed-reading training programs may utilize books, videos, software, and seminars. There is little scientific evidence regarding speed reading, and as a result its value seems uncertain. Cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene says that claims of reading up to 1,000 words per minute «must be viewed with skepticism».^[1]

HistoryEdit

The term «speed reading» is thought to have been coined in the late 1950s by Evelyn Wood, a schoolteacher. She was reportedly curious why some people were naturally faster at reading, so tried to force herself to read very quickly. In 1958, while brushing off the pages of a book she had thrown, she noticed that the sweeping motion of her hand across the page caught the attention of her eyes, and helped them move more smoothly across the page. She then used the hand as a pacer. Wood first taught the method at the University of Utah, before launching it to the public as Evelyn Wood’s Reading Dynamics in Washington, D.C. in 1959.^[2]

Methods and principlesEdit

Skimming and scanningEdit

Skimming is a process of speed reading that involves visually searching the sentences of a page for clues to the main idea or when reading an essay, it can mean reading the beginning and ending for summary information, then optionally the first sentence of each paragraph to quickly determine whether to seek still more detail, as determined by the questions or purpose of the reading.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} For some people, this comes naturally, but is usually acquired by practice. Skimming is usually seen more in adults than in children. It is conducted at a higher rate (700 words per minute and above) than normal reading for comprehension (around 200–230 wpm), and results in lower comprehension rates,^[8] especially with information-rich reading material.^{[citation needed]}

Scanning is the process where one actively looks for information using a mind-map (organizing information in a visually hierarchical manner that showcases the interrelatedness of the information for better retrievability) formed from skimming.^{[citation needed]} These techniques are used by meta-guiding your eyes. Scanning includes the main point as well as headings and important information.

Meta guidingEdit

Meta guiding is the visual guiding of the eye using a finger or pointer, such as a pen, in order for the eye to move faster along the length of a passage of text. It involves drawing invisible shapes on a page of text in order to broaden the visual span for speed reading. For example, an audience of customers at a speed reading seminar will be instructed to use a finger or pen to make these shapes on a page and told that this will speed up their visual cortex, increase their visual span to take in the whole line, and even imprint the information into their subconscious for later retrieval. It has also been claimed to reduce subvocalization (saying words in your head rather than grasping the idea), thereby speeding up reading. Because this encourages the eye to skim over the text, it can reduce comprehension and memory, and lead to missing important details of the text. An emphasis on viewing each word, albeit briefly without regression (Regression is an unconscious process where the eyes go forward two or three «stops» and then go back.) is required for this method to be effective. E.g. S movement and Z movement.^{[clarification needed]}

Speed reading is a skill honed through practice. Reading a text involves comprehension of the material. In speed reading practice this is done through multiple reading processes: preview, overview, read, review and recite; and by read and recall (recording through writing a short summary or a mental outline) exercises.^[9] Another important method for better comprehension is the SQ3R process. These processes help an individual to retain most of the presented ideas from a reading material. A better focus in comprehension is attained through a better reading process with good understanding of the topic.^{[clarification needed]}

Types of readingEdit

There are three types of reading:

1. Subvocalization: sounding out each word internally, as reading to yourself. This is the slowest form of reading.
2. Auditory reading: hearing out the read words. This is a faster process.
3. Visual reading: understanding the meaning of the word, rather than sounding or hearing. This is the fastest process.

Subvocalization readers (Mental readers) generally read at approximately 250 words per minute, auditory readers at approximately 450 words per minute and visual readers at approximately 700 words per minute. Proficient readers are able to read 280–350 wpm without compromising comprehension.^[10]

Effect on comprehensionEdit

Skimming is mainly used for researching and getting an overall idea of a text, especially when time is limited. Duggan & Payne (2009) compared skimming with reading normally, given only enough time to read normally through half of a text. They found that the main points of the full text were better understood after skimming (which could view the full text) than after normal reading (which only read half the text). There was no difference between the groups in their understanding of less important information from the text.^[11] Skimming or skipping over text can also aid in comprehension when layered reading, a process of strategic rereading, is employed.^[12] Further findings suggest that trained speed readers have a slight advantage in both comprehension and speed to untrained skimmers. It is thus suggested by experts that speed-reading is most useful to those who need «to skim a large amount of material or need to improve their study skills» and less useful to those who read «highly technical material that requires careful study of each sentence»^[13]

SoftwareEdit

Eye exercise for speed reading

Computer programs are available to help instruct speed reading students. Some programs present the data as a serial stream, since the brain handles text more efficiently by breaking it into such a stream before parsing and interpreting it.^{[citation needed]} The 2000 National Reading Panel (NRP) report (p. 3-1) seems to support such a mechanism.

To increase speed, some older programs required readers to view the center of the screen while the lines of text around it grew longer. They also presented several objects (instead of text) that move line by line or bounce around the screen. Users had to follow the object(s) with only their eyes. A number of researchers criticize using objects instead of words as an effective training method, claiming that the only way to read faster is to read actual text. Many of the newer speed reading programs use built-in text, and they primarily guide users through the lines of an on-screen book at defined speeds. Often, the text is highlighted to indicate where users should focus their eyes. They are not expected to read by pronouncing the words but instead to read by viewing the words as complete images. The exercises are also intended to train readers to eliminate subvocalization.

Controversies in speed readingEdit

Common controversies in speed reading are between its intent and nature with traditional concepts like comprehension versus speed, reading versus skimming, and popular psychology versus evidence-based psychology. Much of the controversy is raised over these points. This is mainly because a reading comprehension level of 50% is deemed unusable by some educationalists.^[14] Advocates claim that speed reading is a great success and that it is a demonstration of good comprehension for many purposes.^[15] The trade-off between speed and comprehension must be analyzed with respect to the type of reading that is being done, the risks associated with misunderstanding due to low comprehension, and the benefits associated with getting through the material quickly and gaining information at the actual rate is to be obtained. Mark Seidenberg considers claims like reading 25,000 words per minute «cannot be true given basic facts about eyes and texts». He goes on to say that «people are as likely to read thousands of words per minute as they are to run faster than the speed of light». Marshall McLuhan was initially a convert to speed reading, however later concluded it was only useful for tasks like «scanning junk mail».^[16]

A plot of the eye movements of a speed reader

Similarly, in evaluating a claim that a similar reading strategy known as PhotoReading could increase reading rates to 25,000 words per minute, McNamara published a preliminary analysis funded by NASA to evaluate whether this strategy could improve reading speed, comprehension, and information gathering efficiency. When identical versions of five reading samples and accompanying reading comprehension tests were administered to a trainee and an expert in this reading strategy, there was no advantage in overall reading time or comprehension. This strategy may also cause overestimation of one’s knowledge, as demonstrated by the following case in McNamara’s preliminary analysis, showing evidence of the Dunning-Kruger effect:^[17]

The final task given to the PhotoReading expert was to read the three chapters from the textbook on Physiology in order to take an exam from a course that used that textbook. The question was simply: Would she pass the exam? The expert took 73 minutes to PhotoRead and read the three chapters of the textbook required for the test (i.e., 361 words per minute). She PhotoRead for 9 minutes the night before taking the test. The following morning, she read the text using various rapid reading and activation techniques. She then answered the questions. She completed the 6 true/false and 30 multiple choice questions, but did not attempt to answer the fill-in-the-blank or short-answer questions. Hence, comprehension performance on the conceptual questions was 0 percent. She answered 2 of 7 multiple-choice prior knowledge questions correctly (29%). Of the text relevant questions, she answered 4 of 6 true/false questions correctly (67%), and 8 of 23 multiple-choice question correctly (35%). This performance is extremely low and only slightly above chance level performance for these types of questions (i.e., 50% and 25%, respectively). In sum, she did not pass the exam.

It is important to note that after PhotoReading the text (but before taking the test), she rated her understanding of the material as 4.5 on a 5-point scale (5 representing a good understanding). Moreover, she estimated that she would remember approximately 68 percent of the material for the test, with a grade of C+. This high level of confidence in terms of her text comprehension would have remained unshattered had she not then taken the test – after which she rated her comprehension much lower (i.e., 2)

In a 2016 article^[18] published in the journal of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, the authors conclude there is no «magic bullet» for reading more quickly while maintaining comprehension other than to practice reading and to become a more skilled language user (e.g. through increased vocabulary). The authors proceed with debunking common speed reading techniques such as eliminating sub-vocalization, reading more than one word at a time a.k.a. grouping, using RSVP (Rapid Serial Visual Presentation), increasing peripheral vision, alternating colors for each line of text.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy was a proponent of speed reading,^[19] encouraging his staff to take lessons, and he suggested in an interview that he had a reading speed of 1,200 words per minute.^[20] U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and his wife Rosalynn, were both avid readers and enrolled in a speed-reading course at the White House,^[21] along with several staff members.

Ronald Carver, a professor of education research and psychology, claims that the fastest college graduate readers can read only about 600 words per minute, at most twice as fast as their slowest counterparts, and suggests that Kennedy’s claimed reading speed was more a measure of how fast he could skim a piece of text.^[22] Other critics have suggested that speed reading is actually skimming, not reading.^[23]

The World Championship Speed Reading Competition stresses reading comprehension as critical. The top contestants typically read around 1,000 to 2,000 words per minute with approximately 50% comprehension or above. The six-time world champion Anne Jones is recorded for 4200 wpm with previous exposure to the material and 67% comprehension. The recorded number of words the eye can see in single fixation is three words.^[24]

«Speed Reading World Record» claims have been controversial. Howard Stephen Berg from the United States has claimed to be the Guinness World Record holder for fast reading with a speed of 25,000 words per minute,^[25] and Maria Teresa Calderon from the Philippines claims to have earned the Guinness World Record for World’s Fastest Reader at 80,000 words per minute reading speed and 100% comprehension.^[26] Critics point out that it is possible to beat some speed reading world records by reading a pre-read or pre-memorized text, flipping the pages as fast as possible without reading it. The Guinness Speed Reading World Record Standards are not known and they have terminated^[when?] adding speed readers to its honor list. In 2015, Memoriad, the World Mental Sports Federation, set the rules for «Speed Reading World Record Standards» in order to prevent unclear claims.^[27][28]

See alsoEdit

• Incremental reading – reading method aimed at long-term memorization
• Learning styles
• Learning to read
• Pareto principle
• Slow reading − intentional reduction in the speed of reading
• TL;DR an abbreviation for «Too Long; Didn’t Read»

ReferencesEdit

Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

• Sorry, But Speed Reading Won’t Help You Read More
• Golovatyi, Aleksandr (5 July 2019). «How To Read 3x Faster: Some Advice from Readlax». Medium.com.
• Ferriss, Tim (13 May 2014). «How I Learned to Read 300 Percent Faster in 20 Minutes». Huffington Post.
• Dunning, Brian (26 October 2010). «Skeptoid #229: Speed Reading». Skeptoid.

Notes on 10 Days to Faster Reading by Abby Marks-Beale

About Abby Marks-Beale

Abby Marks-Beale is the author of the Personal MBA-recommended book 10 Days to Faster Reading , as well as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Speed Reading. If you want to fly through your reading pile, RSS reader, and e-mail inbox at breakneck speed while maintaining consistently high levels of reading comprehension, these speed reading books are for you.

For more information about Abby’s work, check out:

• Rev It Up Reading — Abby’s new online reading skills course.
• The Corporate Educator — Abby’s business skills website.

Here are ten big ideas from Abby Marks-Beale’s 10 Days to Faster Reading …

1. Linear Reading is Inefficient — You Don’t Have to Read Every Word to Extract Value from Non-Fiction Material

The purpose of non-fiction reading is not to read every word on every page — it’s to extract useful information from the material. Growing up, most of us learned to read by starting with the first word on the first page, then continuing to read until we get to the last word on the last page. Unless you’ve learned structured non-fiction reading techniques, you probably still read this way, even though it’s extremely inefficient.

Efficient reading is non-linear — a series of quick skims, skipping around, referencing, and note-taking. The purpose is not 100% eye-coverage of the text: it’s to extract all of the useful information that’s relevant to what you want to do.

It’s easy to get hung up on “reading the book» as turning pages until there are no more pages to turn. Once you get comfortable with the idea that you don’t have work your way through the entire book linearly to benefit from your reading, you can read much faster, and put the book down when you’ve learned what you need to know.

2. Pick Your Battles: Ruthlessly Edit Your Reading Pile

Most of us have way too much to read. Between books, newsletters, magazines, e-mail, blog posts, and snail mail, our reading pile overfloweth. Until someone invents a Time-Turner that will allow us to keep up with our reading, choices must be made.

Triage helps you read the most critical materials first. In any good hospital Emergency Room, doctors identify which patients need help first — everyone else can wait. Heart attacks get first priority; cases of indigestion can wait a while. The same principle applies to reading: you may have a large pile, but some reading material will be more important than others.

Having a sense of clarity about what you’re trying to do is necessary in order to triage your reading pile effectively. If you’ve taken the time to clearly define your goals (i.e. “what you want»), it’s much easier to figure out if reading certain materials will help you get what you want.

When I was in the middle of writing my book, I didn’t check my blog reader for over four months. That was okay: reading RSS feeds was not as important as writing chapters, so I made a conscious decision not to read them for a while. When in doubt, throw it out or defer the reading to another time.

3. Questions Before Content: The Power of Purpose-Setting

Effective non-fiction reading does NOT start with picking up the book. You can multiply your reading effectiveness by taking a few minutes before you start reading to decide why you’re bothering to read in the first place. I call this technique “Purpose-Setting.»

Purpose-Setting is the act of deciding what you want to learn by reading this material. By figuring out what information would help you, what questions you want answered, and how you intend to apply the material, you’ll make it much easier to recognize useful information when you find it.

I’ve found the best way to purpose-set is to write down 8-10 questions on an index card or in a notebook before opening the book. This effectively programs your brain to look for the information you’re trying to find — a very important concept called “Priming.»

4. Priming: The Benefit of a Quick Preview

Priming is the act of “programming» your brain to notice certain things about your environment. If you’ve ever been interested in a certain type of car, only to find you start seeing them EVERYWHERE you go, you know what priming feels like. The universe hasn’t unloaded thousands of new cars all over the highway — they’ve always been there, but your brain filtered them out as irrelevant. Your interest changed the filters, so you actually notice when they appear.

Priming happens unconsciously, but you can control it if you know what you’re doing. Purpose-Setting works because it gives you an opportunity to consciously “prime» your perceptual filters to notice information related to your interests. That’s what allows you to read so quickly — when you’re sufficiently primed, you can skim through a book quickly until your brain recognizes something as interesting or important. As you skim, you suddenly find your eyes stopping on the part of the text that relates to what you’re looking for. It feels like magic, but it’s just your brain doing its job.

Before you start reading, don’t skip the two richest sources of priming material in the book: the table of contents and the index. The TOC gives you information about the book’s structure, content, and order. The index, aside from being a useful reference tool, is essentially a frequency-map of the book’s key terms. If you find a term you don’t know with a large number of citations, chances are it’s important — write it down on a list of key terms before you start reading.

Purpose-Setting and Priming only take a few minutes. Once you’re done, you’re ready to fly through the book.

5. The Thought is Faster Than the Word

The biggest barrier to faster reading is subvocalization: sounding-out words verbally instead of thinking them. Subvocalization is a useful tool in learning to read, but it’s a major speed barrier once our skills have developed. Our minds are capable of taking in written words as thoughts much faster than our ability to vocalize them.

The first step in eliminating subvocalization is realizing that you’re doing it. Pick up a piece of reading material and notice what’s happening in your mind as you read it. If you’re saying the words to yourself as you read, you’re subvocalizing. To stop, simply start reading faster: at a certain point, you’ll be going faster than you can subvocalize, and you’ll be amazed at how much you’re still able to comprehend and retain.

Realizing that you can comprehend written material without subvocalizing is a major milestone that will increase your reading speed dramatically.

6. Your Eyes Can Absorb More Information Than You Think

Your eyes can easily take in more than one word at a time. Instead of fixating on every word, taking in groups of 3-5 words at a time can increase your reading speed without harming your comprehension. Learning to read more than one word at a time is mostly a matter of training — Marks-Beale includes many exercises that can help you learn this skill.

New speed readers tend to gravitate to eye fixation techniques because they’re concrete, but they’re not the most important part of reading speed. In my experience, Purpose-Setting and Priming are far more important — if you’re trying to get the 80/20, start there. Eye fixation naturally develops with practice and experience.

(Note: a useful tool you can use to train your abilities to read without subvocalizing and taking in more than one word at a time is Spreeder.)

7. Take Notes for Better Comprehension and Retention

Reading is not a passive activity — it’s not like television, where your job is to simply absorb stimuli. Reading is an active mental process that can result in all sorts of unexpected insights and connections, so it pays to be ready to capture them before you forget.

Don’t hesitate to write as you read. Taking notes does two useful things: it creates an archive of your thoughts for later reference, and it helps reinforce what you learn. Personally, I find the latter most important — if I read something and then write it down, it almost always sticks in long-term memory. The idea capture / archival process is useful for application — you can spark many new ideas by reading older notes.

Note-taking can take many forms. Some people prefer to write notes in the margins of the book itself, some prefer notebooks, and some prefer capturing notes via a computer or other device. Personally, I prefer a physical notebook — it’s easy to carry and easy to reference. Regardless of what you choose, always take notes.

8. Eliminate Distractions for Best Results

Reading quickly requires intense mental concentration and effort. Done well, it engages your total attention, challenges your skills, and requires focus. If the phone is ringing, e-mail alerts are buzzing, and co-workers are constantly interrupting you, it’s best to find a quiet, pleasant environment where you can focus for longer periods of time.

(Side note: don’t ever let a co-worker give you a hard time for reading at work. Reading is real work, and is often one of the most effective things you can do with your productive time.)

9. Challenge the Author — Capture Your Questions and Objections

Once of the differences in reading for school and reading for your own self-education is being able to reach out to authors you respect or disagree with and get answers. Since most of us grew up reading school textbooks and assigned material in an effort to pass tests, we often forget that authors are real people who are happy to engage with their readers.

Capturing your thoughts as you read is a major opportunity to discuss and engage with the author and other interested readers. Once you’ve sketched your own thoughts regarding a book, you’re in a much better position to have interesting and useful discussions about the book with others.

I often read material twice: the first pass is non-critical, keeping a completely open mind and trying to understand the author’s key points and position. The second pass is critical: are there elements that are confusing or contradictory? Are there positions I don’t agree with? If so, I write my thoughts down for later reference and discussion.

10. Reading is Not Enough — Focus on Applying What You Read

The purpose of reading non-fiction is not to simply read the book — it’s to learn something useful. While reading is fun (and gets even more fun as you learn these skills), it doesn’t become profitable until you start translating things you’ve read into real-world results.

After reading a good book, you should always be able to add at least 3 tasks to your active to-do or projects list. Capture these actions while you’re reading, and review the list when you’re done. Ideally, these actions should be directly related to accomplishing one of the goals you had in the purpose-setting step.

Effective Non-Fiction Reading is a Skill — The Dividends are Huge

Effective non-fiction reading is a skill. It takes some time and practice to learn, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll experience enormous gains in your productivity.

Once I learned the material in 10 Days to Faster Reading , I easily quadrupled my reading speed. Now, I can easily sit down with a book for 10-15 minutes and extract most of the valuable information from the text — a task that would previously take me at least an hour.

Here’s an experiment I highly recommend trying for yourself: go to your local bookstore or library, grab 6 books and a timer, and spend no more than 10 minutes trying these techniques on each book. At the end of the 10 minutes, go back and write down in a notebook all of the things you learned. You’ll amaze yourself — guaranteed.

Read more book notes by Josh Kaufman »

When Theodore Roosevelt did things, he did them with gusto. That included reading. Roosevelt was a voracious reader. The man devoured books like a damn hungry lion feasting on a fresh kill.  While in the White House, he would read a book every day before breakfast. If he didn’t have any official business in the evening, he would read two or three more books plus any magazines and newspapers that caught his fancy. By his own estimates, TR read tens of thousands of books during his lifetime, including hundreds in foreign languages.

Roosevelt accomplished this feat because he knew how to speed read. Associates said he would would flip through two or three pages in a minute. Despite reading so quickly, Roosevelt could relate back  in minute detail all of a book’s important points and even recite quotes from the text.

Being able to plow through so many books so quickly benefited TR’s leadership and influence. He easily connected with others as he could hold a conversation with anyone on any subject imaginable. Scientists were  blown away with Roosevelt’s knowledge of complex theories, socialites were smitten with his witty insights about the latest piece by Oscar Wilde, and cowboys out West respected the “Eastern Dude’s” understanding of desert wildlife. TR’s life as a bionic book worm also provided plenty of grist for the 2,000 published works he turned out himself.

In this post we provide some suggestions and tips so you can start speeding reading just like Theodore Roosevelt. Are you ready to start devouring books with your brain? Let’s get started!

How to Speed Read

Stop subvocalizing by counting.When we learned to read, we usually read aloud and pronounced every single word that we saw in a line. This slows reading down considerably because you can only read as fast as you can talk. While you may long ago have graduated from Hooked on Phonics and transitioned to reading silently, you probably still subvocalize. Subvocalization is when you pronounce words with the voice in your head or larynx. You might even open your mouth silently as you read, sort of like a guppy (I do this sometimes and my wife makes fun of me for it).

Quitting the subvocalization habit can be hard. First try simply reading faster than your mouth can move or the voice in your head can speak. If that doesn’t work, try this technique: Repeatedly say “A-E-I-O-U” or count “1, 2, 3, 4” as you read the text. This will help train you to stop reading with your larynx and guppy lips and start reading with your eyes. This little trick can increase your speed in a matter of minutes.

Stop backtracking by using your finger. Backtracking slows many readers down. After reading a word, a person will read two or three more words, but then dart their eyes back to the first word. You probably do this without even realizing it. Watch someone read. You’ll see their eyes darting back and forth. Chances are they’re re-reading the same line over again.

To help you stop backtracking, use your index finger as a pace car. Underline the text with your finger at a pace faster than you normally read. Only look at the text in front of your finger; once you pass it with your finger, you can’t go back.

Use your peripheral vision. Your brain can comprehend several words at a time. You don’t have to read every single word by itself. The key with speed reading is to start reading multiple words at a time instead of just one at a time. To read chunks of text at a time, you need to start developing your peripheral  vision. Here’s how:

Take a book and draw two parallel lines about three inches apart from each other down the middle of the text. Concentrate on the area between the lines and try not to move your eyes outside of them. See if you can catch the words beyond the lines in your peripheral vision. Being able to indirectly read words in this way will greatly increase your reading speed.

Another thing you can do to get in the habit of reading text in big chunks is to practice speed reading with newspapers. Newspaper columns typically measure 1.83 inches. You can only fit five to six words in that small space, thus providing you the perfect platform to master reading text by the chunk. Instead of reading word by word, try reading line by line. It takes some practice, but you’ll find yourself breezing through the local story about the cat that got stuck on the roof in a matter of seconds.

Train your eyes with free web apps. Several free web applications exist that help users stop backtracking and train their eyes and mind to read more than one word a time. Spreeder is my favorite. Simply copy and paste the text you want to speed read into Spreeder. Spreeder will then flash chunks of your text on the screen until it goes through the entire text. You can decide how many words Spreeder will show at a time and how fast you want the words to appear. I actually used Spreeder during law school to help me quickly read through cases. Not only was I able to get through assigned reading faster, I trained myself to stop backtracking and subvocalizing as well.

Try the z method. The idea that reading must be done linearly is a myth. Your mind is pretty dang amazing, and it can actually process and understand stuff even if you read it backwards. Take advantage of this by employing the z method. Basically the way this works is you start off on the first line and read it normally- left to right. Of course you’re not subvocalizing, and you’re not making any unneeded stops. When you get to the end of the first line, sweep your eyes from right to left diagonally across the second line until you get to the beginning of line three. Repeat this z pattern down the page.

You’d think you’d miss information by simply scanning across every other line backwards and diagonally. But try it for yourself. With practice, your brain will be able to pick up information backwards and in the periphery. Pretty dang amazing.

Know when to skim and scan. In addition to reading quickly, Roosevelt looked for places where he could skim and scan. In a letter to his son Kermit about the best way to read Dickens, Roosevelt said: “The wise thing to do is simply to skip the bosh and twaddle and vulgarity and untruth, and get the benefit out of the rest.” We can follow that advice for most things we read.

Not every word is important when conveying an idea. For example, articles like “a,” “an,” and “the” can be eliminated from most text, and you can still understand what is written. With practice you can train yourself to look over these unnecessary words and focus on the meaty stuff.

Another thing you can do to help focus on keywords is to skim through the book’s table of contents and section headings so you have a general idea of what the section is about. This will prime your brain to be on the look out for words related to the topic when you actually start reading.

Of course, the pleasure of some books is the masterful whole, the entirety of language and the author’s carefully selected words and purposefully constructed sentences. The joy of such literature comes in soaking up the text precisely as intended. In such cases, it’s best to slow down and take it in.

Listen to our podcast about Theodore Roosevelt, the reader and writer: 

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Which do you think is more important for speed reading, your eyes or your brain? If your eyes are fast but you have no brain comprehension, the activity is useless. If your brain comprehends everything, but your eyes move slowly, you won’t be able to speed read. So to read faster, you need the cooperation of your eyes and your brain, but think of your eyes as the catalyst for your brain.

Your eyes are the gateway to your mind. If your gate is open a half inch, that’s what the mind processes. If your gate is open four inches, the mind will learn to process that much. One goal of speed reading is to help you learn how to broaden your eye span to see more words at a time while maintaining, or improving, comprehension.

If you learned to read by the phonics method (sounding out every word and then hearing it in your head before understanding it), it makes sense that you may still be individually decoding words while you read silently. This means you stop your eyes on one word at a time and have a narrow eye span. Skilled speed readers have learned to expand their peripheral vision. Their wide eye span, both horizontally and vertically, enables them to see more than one word at a time. And that means gaining reading speed.

No matter what you think about your reading skills, give yourself credit for how much you have achieved and how far you have come with the skills you currently possess. If you are looking to improve your reading skills, the Rev It Up Reading Online Course will teach you how to read smarter, faster and just plain better. Now’s the time to get started speeding up your reading!