Advance Learning Strategy: Speed Reading (Part 1)

 

 

To justify your comprehension, you need to remember 10 incidents or things about the article. For each incident/thing that you remember, give yourself 10 points. If you can remember 10 incidents/things, you score 100%. [Note: The actual way to calculate is for someone else to ask the reader 10 questions. But since it is not possible to give yourself 10 questions, this approach does not apply when you are doing the exercise on your own.]

 

You need to look at the right side of your reading speed chart. For example, if you can remember five incidents or things, you will have 50% and you can mark it at the 50% line on the left side of the chart, at the same column as your reading date. The faster we read, the more information will be retained through the reading.

 

You can evaluate your own reading speed to determine which type of reader you are. Most of us fall under the category of reading between 200-300 words per minute.

 

 

To have a better understanding of what happens to our eyes when reading, you can pursue the following steps: Punch a hole in the middle of a page of an article so you can peep through. Ask a friend to assist you. Hold the paper with the article facing your friend. Ask you friend to read the article while you peep through the hole and look at your friend’s eye movement. The objective is to calculate the eye movement.

 

We read from word to word, one word after another. Sometimes when we read, we pause as we miss something and will start reading form the beginning again. This is called back-skipping. Back-skipping prevents us from being a fast reader.

 

We wrongly perceive that we need to read word-for-word to enable us to understand better. Reading word-for-word will slow us down. Imagine if we can read two words at a time, it means we will be able to double our reading speed. By doubling our reading speed, we will be able to reduce our reading time.

 

Students should not stop when reading. They should concentrate because through concentration and focus, they can move forward as their brain will be able to process information at a speed faster than their eye-input.

 

If students missed certain words, they can still move forward. Their concentration and focus will enable them to understand the concept. There is no need for students to back-skip.

 

Wandering happens when students daydream during the reading session. Their minds wander elsewhere. If they are forced to speed read, their minds cannot wander elsewhere because their brains are focused on reading and have no time to daydream. Only when students read too slowly, do they tend to daydream. For example, when they read the word ‘exciting’, the word prompts them to think of an exciting moment in their lives that is not at all related or relevant to the article they are reading.

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Thomas SY Hooi is the founder and managing director of GeniusBrain International. He has been actively involved in on-going research and development on accelerated learning since 1999. The father of two school-going children has contributed widely to the practice of super learning, memory enhancement, creative thinking skills and subliminal learning, especially in Malaysia and Singapore. Dr Hooi also believes in the importance of emotional intelligence, leadership development and motivation among youths. For more information, please log on to http://geniusbrain.com.