Of course, the speed reading method is not suitable for reading fiction, when it is important for you to pay attention to every detail. But what do you do when you have to go through hundreds of pages of boring material in a short time? This is where speed reading comes to the rescue.
Everyone's reading speed is different, but the average is 200 words per minute. Having practiced speed reading, you can increase this indicator by 2-3 times. Continuing training, you will be able to overcome about 200 pages of text in half an hour without prejudice to the assimilation of information.
Basic speed reading techniques
Like every scientific method, speed reading has its own tricks.
- Follow the text. To do this, drag along the lines with your finger or pencil. This technique will allow you to read faster.
- Don't go back. To do this, you need to concentrate on the material that you are studying. How often has it happened that you, lost in thought, skipped the meaning of a paragraph or even a whole page? Your task is not to let this happen. Understand what you read the first time.
- Don't say the text to yourself. This technique helps to pump your speed reading skill very well, since you will no longer waste time speaking words. To do this, use one exercise: while reading, sing a song to yourself, for example, "a grasshopper was sitting in the grass," and at the same time try to assimilate the meaning of what you read. Practice this exercise until you stop saying the lines you read to yourself.
- Read from top to bottom or diagonally. This is the next step after the "follow the text" technique. You are already skilled enough at speed reading to try to capture an entire paragraph in your field of vision, or at least a whole line, focusing your gaze in the middle of it. Start small. Master narrow columns of text first, gradually moving to standard portrait format.
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Skip the "water". Interjections, introductory constructions and other non-essential elements do not have to be read at all, this will not affect the meaning in any way. So just "slide" your gaze over them and move on to the core.
- Focus on what's important. This advice may seem similar to the previous one, but here it is a little different. Go through the table of contents first and prioritize what you must read and what you can skip. Thus, due to lack of time, you will not miss anything important, and in case time remains, you can study less important materials.
- Reading, read. Eliminate all irritants, anything that might distract your attention. Then the process of speed reading will go much more pleasant and easier.
How to develop peripheral vision
To do this, use the most popular method - the Schulte table. Your task, concentrating only on the central part of the table, find all the numbers in ascending order, while using only peripheral vision. On the Internet you can find special table simulators, below is an example of such a table.
Develop concentration
All sorts of optical illusions will help you in this matter, for example, the significant drawing of Covey.
Try to switch your attention 90 times in 10, preferably 5 minutes.
