How to do Speed Reading – Part 3

By SuccessMuslim

In this part, we learn more advanced topics in Speed Reading. Make sure you have a good understanding of the material covered in Part 1 and Part 2, before you move on to Part 3.

Preparation for this article Series

In preparation for this article series, I went through almost 5-6 books in Speed-Reading, DVD programs, and Audio CD’s in addition to the information I already know from the speed-reading course I took.

The materials that I went through are huge in content, and include reading exercises and study drills. Since I want to present you with a condensed 3 part series on the topic, I have skipped many other good techniques we can use for Speed-Reading.

As I explain two key techniques below, please be aware that my intension is to introduce – with my limited writing space – important Speed-Reading concepts to you, so you can be inspired to take this area of study forward. Use these materials as a foundation and starting point for your own study process.

Two Major Concepts: Managing Sub vocalization, and Effective Vision Span

Let me introduce two major concepts in Speed Reading –Managing Sub vocalization, and Effective Vision Span. For each concept, I will give one specific technique you can apply that will give tremendous improvement in your reading.

1) Vocalization and sub vocalization

Adapted from the best selling Speed-Reading book – “Remember Everything You Read: The Evelyn Wood 7-Day Speed Reading & Learning Program “ by Stanley D. Frank.

Vocalization means to read our loudly. Sub vocalization is to read aloud silently. Most of the time when we read, we sub vocalize. The problem here is – we read for our ear to listen, and hence we read in normal speaking speed. And this hinders you from reading faster than your normal speaking speed.

When we see a portrait painting, or a person – we don’t read out to ourselves, the characteristics of the person. We let our eye decide about it, and we internalize information using pictures.

Our goal will be to move from sub vocalization to visual-vertical technique. i.e., eliminating the silent sound and replacing with visual perception. Then, we do a vertical sweep of the page, without reading line-by-line.

There are areas where sub vocalization is helpful. For e.g. reading poetry, dense text materials, double-checking, dialogues, reading your favorite fiction novel, etc. As I discussed in Part1, you need not speed-reading everything. If you want to speed-read, we have to avoid sub vocalization.

“Talk out Loud” Exercise:

Take a book and spent about 2 to 4 seconds per page just looking at the content. When you look, say out loud some keywords that you notice, and again say loud, some questions about the words. The reason of this saying out loud is to keep your internal voice “busy” and prevent it from doing the reading for you. While you do the glance and read loud, continue glancing the page 2-4 sec per page. Do this for 6 pages, and then come back to this exercise.

Welcome back “after doing” the exercise. Now, you will notice that the content of material (however small) you have accumulated in the 6 pages you read now is because of your “visual reading” rather than your auditory facilities.

The more you practice this technique, more you will be trained to read using “visual” appearance of the words in the page, without any further testing or checking. Then your speed and efficiency will leap forward significantly.

2) Vision Span Technique

Adapted from the Speed-Reading book “Triple Your Reading Speed, Fourth Edition by Wade E. Cutler”

Your eye movement decides your speed: the speed of your reading is based on the how you move your eyes over the words. If you move your eyes every one-word you read, then it will take more time than reading 4 or 5 words and then moving your eyes. A very fast reader reads one line with two-eye movement – For shorter lines just one. This is what we should aim to achieve.

As you read this line, notice how your eyes move across the words. For an average reader, his eyes tends to move across the printed line in a series of short jerks, stopping approximately once per word. This is called fixations or eye stops per line. Any reduction in the number will increase the speeding rate.

To reduce the number of stops, we have to train our eyes to see a larger area of the page each time you stop – i.e. “fixate”. This would require enough practice from your side, and the reward of this effort cannot be anything less that you becoming a speed-reader.

Four Different Examples of “Eye Stops”

Very slow Reader

Yo u R e a d W o r d b y W o r d
1 2 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Slow word-by-word read

You    Read Word by Word
1            2          3      4       5

Better than average reader

When You read word by word

1                         2                3

Accelerated Reader

When You read word by word

1                     2

Exercise: Two Step Process

The most important exercise, which follows, is designed to help you learn a technique for reading with only two eye-stops or fixations, regardless of the number of words. If you wish to triple your reading speed, it is imperative that you master what follows.

Imagine the line you want to read vertically divided into 4 parts like below.

A test to read | with two-step pro | cess technique | World is good!
A                                   B                            C

Above is a line that I have split into 4 parts – using three vertical lines A, B, C.

Imagine your eyes are sponges. You are to set them firmly in line A. Try to expand your vision and read maximum you can. Then, move your eyes to line C, and do the same (expanding the vision and reading the content around C)

Repeat above drill line by line – several times on a 1-2 count. Make sure you expand your vision when reading from each point.

Resist any temptation to stop more than twice on each line, or to scan or sweep visually. If you do more than two stops, you will see mainly blurs as your eyes hurry along with the words, in which case your comprehension will not be satisfactory.

This is the two-stop method. For each line, you move your eyes only twice. This needs practice, and then, once you master it, you can just skim through the page within seconds!

Speed-Reading Graduation

Find out how much time it will take for you to read an article of 900-1000 words (Most of my articles are 800-1000 word range). If you can finish any of my article, in less than a minute – bravo! You have successfully completed the speed-reading course!

Conclusion

With this article series, my intension was to bring together best contents of books, Video and Audio materials in Speed-Reading into a condensed 3 part series, and open the world of Speed-Reading to you, and to give you some practical tips that you can start immediately apply to your life. And I believe I have tried my best to achieve that goal. May He accept.

My advice to you is: Learning speed-reading is like learning to make gold from air, opening treasures of wisdom and knowledge; that you never thought you could learn in a lifetime. Inshah Allah

Though it takes patience, practice and dedication from your side, if this skill is mastered, it will change your life. The way it changed mine.

Reference

1) The complete Idiots guide to Speed reading – Abby Marks Beale
2) Triple your reading speed – 4th Edition – by Wade E Cutler
3) Speed reading – by Tony Buzan
4) Remember Everything You Read: The Evelyn Wood 7-Day Speed Reading & Learning Program by Stanley D. Frank
5) Breakthrough Rapid Reading – Peter Kump
6) Speed Reader X: Speed Reading Made Easy [Cd-Rom]

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