Whether it’s a book, this blog post, or a file at work, we all must do some kind of reading every day. However, some of us struggle to read as quickly as we want, which can be both frustrating and distracting.
Thankfully, we’re here to help by giving you one solid solutions. Here are 7 tips to read faster while maintaining comprehension.
7 Tips on How to Read Faster
1. Previewing
As wise men have said before, always look at the bigger picture. For any text, giving it a quick preview allows you to have a comprehension of what it is that you are reading about. A general overview of the topic at hand allows you to identify the flow of the text.
Pay attention to headings, subheadings, anything that has been emboldened to stand out, and especially bullet points. You would also do well to read the introductory and concluding paragraphs.
Look for sentences that connect ideas, check out any pictures or charts, and see how the author organized the text. One helpful tip to preview the material is to try reading the entire first paragraph, the first sentence of each paragraph, and the entire concluding paragraph.
2. Planning
They say the style makes the fight and the same is true for reading faster. Adapt your approach to the type of text at hand. If it is a dense technical or legal paper, you need to read parts of it more thoroughly and carefully than you would for a novel or a blog post.
Be mindful of what your goal is from the particular text you are reading. It is always a good idea to make a mental note of what it is that you are looking to gain from the material. This is where your preview should come in handy, it allows you to check if the author’s intent aligns with your goals.
It should be clear to you that you may not need to read the whole material if your goal is to learn about something specific. Another part of planning can be finding the most comfortable reading spot for you, a spot without distractions or loud noises. You should experiment with different kinds of atmospheres to find out what is the optimal situation for you.
3. Mindfulness
Reading is an active activity, not a passive one. Paying attention is the most important thing when it comes to reading faster. Simply put, it saves you time by realizing early on if you are struggling to grasp a certain paragraph or section, rather than reading passively and going back to reread it.
Yes, you have to skim sentences to have a faster reading speed but if you do it carelessly you will have to track back and read those sections again to have a better comprehension. This is called “regression”, and it hampers your ability to read and understand the text as quickly as you would like.
For speed reading to be truly effective, you need to hit the perfect balance between speed and understanding. Studies have found that the speed of reading directly impacts your ability to recall detail, making it vitally important to be mindful of what you are reading.
4. Avoid Subvocalization
We learn to read by a process called subvocalization, which involves silently pronouncing every word in our head as we read. This process creates a delay between reading and comprehension, ultimately slowing you down.
One technique to mitigate this is to not read every word in a sentence, instead reading in clusters. On average, we can skim text in roughly 1.5-inch sections, about three to five words. So instead of reading individual words, we suggest you read a cluster of three to five words, jumping from one cluster to the other.
The idea is to relax your face and take in more of the page, so you stop seeing words as single separate units. Your peripheral vision helps you do this faster with practice. Another technique is to use your finger or a pen to point at each cluster so your eyes can keep track of the movement.
5. Selectiveness
In the era of optimized text in websites and articles, it is imperative that you are aware that not every section in a blog post, an article or a listicle is important. Even in terms of academic textbooks, Dartmouth College’s Academic Skills Center theorizes that students do not need to read every section of the book to understand the topic.
Selecting relevant parts of the text allows us to retain the important parts of the text and have a general understanding of the whole topic, rather than having a full idea of some of it.
6. Summarize
Reading isn’t the end of the story. One should make it a habit to summarize, in a few sentences, what they have read. It is advisable to even write down a few sentences about what you just read, and see if it answers the questions you had before reading the material.
You should try to synthesize what you read to have a clearer command and recall of the information. It is a practice that you should engage in to build a habit of summarizing text while you read the article, blog post, review or report, preferably in your head.
This will solidify the information in your mind and allow you to articulate better on the topic when needed. Another suggestion is to link complex ideas to a personal experience. Studies have shown that triggering personal memory or emotion helps you to access information more easily.
7. Practice
There is no substitute for practicing. Any skill that you want to develop, will require significant time investment in practicing that skill and its relevant activities.
Try to time your reading activities, how many minutes does it take for you to read a page or a certain number of words? Practicing timed runs allows you to approach any text or prose strategically.
It enhances your capacity to summarize and read actively, saving you time. As you learn to read faster and faster, it is well advised that you check back with yourself that you are indeed comprehending what you are reading.