Education for All

Whether you need (e.g., you are a student or otherwise have deadlines on reading) or simply want to have the ability to read and understand more quickly, learning speed reading is the way to go. Not everyone thinks that reading is a skill that can be improved in this way, but like any other skill, practice is the key. Almost anyone can learn to speed read, it is merely a matter of finding a technique which is effective for them.

Think back to the last book you read. Odds are that some parts were important enough to hold your interest, and others that you felt could have been passed over. Once you learn to identify these parts, you will find yourself skipping past these and absorbing only the relevant material. This means you can gain speed without sacrificing understanding (and doing without the filler).

Second, start skipping small words or phrases. This seems difficult to do at first, but if you’ve been reading for any length of time at all, you already know that words and phrases will follow patterns. For instance, if you read a line that begins ‘She would cut off her nose…’ you know that there is a good chance that it will end with ‘to spite her face.’ This skill is called inference, and you’ll find that it is far easier than you think it is; once you start practicing it, you will start to improve dramatically. (more…)