Is it possible to improve reading speed

There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 2,, times. Whether you're hitting the textbooks in philosophy class or reading the morning newspaper, reading can feel tedious. Train yourself to speed read to get through these tasks much faster. Reading faster does lead to less understanding, but with practice you can overcome some of this effect.

If you want to learn speed reading, train yourself not to move your throat or your lips as you read, since this can slow you down. To start speed reading even faster, try reading the text more quickly than you can actually understand them, which may eventually train your brain to process the words more quickly. Read on to learn tips for efficiently skimming through large portions of text!

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Related Articles. Article Summary. Part 1. Stop talking to yourself. Almost every reader "subvocalizes," or moves their throat as they imagine speaking the words. This occupies muscles used to subvocalize.

If you move your lips as you read, hold a finger against them. Cover words you've already read. When reading, your eyes often move back to earlier words. Most of the time, these are short movements that probably don't improve understanding.

These "regressions" also happen when you've failed to understand something. If your eyes jump several words or lines back, that's a sign that you may need to slow down. Understand eye movements. While reading, your eyes move jerkily, stopping on some words and skipping others. You can only read while your eyes are stopped.

If you learn to make fewer movements per line, you'll read a lot faster. But be careful — research reveals limits to how much English readers can see at once: [4] X Research source You can read eight letters to the right of your eye position, but only four to the left. This is roughly two or three words at a time. You notice letters 9—15 spaces to the right, but can't read them clearly.

Normal readers don't process words on other lines. Training yourself to skip lines and still understand them would be very difficult. Train your eyes to make fewer movements. Your brain normally decides where to move your eyes based on how long or familiar the next words look. Try this exercise: Place an index card over a line of text.

Write an X on the card, over the first word. Write another X on the same line. Place it three words further for good understanding, five words for easy texts, or seven words to skim the main points. Write more Xs at the same spacing, until you reach the end of the line. Read quickly as you move the index card down, trying to only focus your eyes just below each X. Set a pace faster than you can understand.

Many programs claim to increase your reading speed by training your reflexes first, then practicing until your brain can catch up. This has not been thoroughly studied. It certainly increases the speed you move through the text, but you may understand little or nothing. Try this if you want to aim for extreme speed reading, and you might understand more after a few days of practice.

Here's how: Move a pencil along the text. Time this so you can say "one one thousand" at a calm pace and finish just as you reach the end of a line. Spend two minutes trying to read at the pace of the pencil. Even if you can't understand anything, stay focused on the text and keep your eyes moving for the entire two minutes. Rest for a minute, then go even faster. Spend three minutes trying to read at the pace of a pen that moves across two lines every time you say "one one thousand".

Try RSVP software. In this approach, the phone app or computer software flashes text a single word at a time. This lets you choose any reading speed you like.

Raise it too high, though, and you won't be able to remember a large percentage of the words. Part 2. Would mind sharing with us what is the precticing routine you have used with them in these 6 months? Btw, have u ever tried or heard any feedback on other famous speedreading techniques?

Using this approach on the Made to Stick book, my wpm went from to Those techniques leading up to the second testing, definitely train the eyes to move more efficiently. About two years ago, I did a similar but much less documented program, which drastically helped.

Keep it up! Thanks for posting this Tim. Many people have started suggesting speed reading to me since I am starting grad school in the fall. God I wish I learned some of these techniques in time for University.

Way too much time wasted on reading crap I needed just for an exam. Thanks Tim. I unconsciously do some of these techniques, however, I need to take the time and learn the proper ones and really start cooking.

Its like you read my mind! Have you gone beyond these steps mentioned and focused on other resources for further mastery? And as the poster Tyler asked what are your thoughts on photo reading? I tested PhotoReading when it first appeared on the scene and was being advertised heavily on TV. I have yet to meet anyone who can demonstrate it live and then undergo any type of comprehension or recall testing. At the moment, I am testing myself. One night I dreamed of the pages.

In my dream I was able to see the pages but the Text was not sharp, so I was not able to read conscious within my dream. Sometimes I imagine without timestopping , that speedreading goes faster when photoreading ahead.

For the time being, I will continue to be very selective about what I read low-information diet to minimize the time spent with reading. Reading a book by A. Huxley about the art of seeing, in which he describes how he manged to heal strong his seeing problems, I figured out that while trying to photoread I had the wrong focus with my eyes.

While learning the photofocus I tryed to reach a visonable expression like described by Scheele in his book. Actually I figured out that I did not focus on a thing which is farer away than the book.

Instead my visual focus was set up for seeing things very close. To test if you do the same mistake you can use a pen and move it infront of your eyes while beeing in the wrong photo focus.

I will give it an other try after having learned to focus in the distance. What might improve my eyes too as Scheele describes too. Next to the exercices of the bates method.

The experiences I made with sunlight concerning the Bates method, are positive. At least in the moment just after the exercise. It really depends on what you are reading. Sometimes it is necessary to slow down and let your mind and emotions catch up with what you have read. Not everything should be read quickly. It is somewhat akin to inline skating through the Louvre.

Sure you can see everything 10 times as fast, but you miss details along the way. Speed reading is basically scanning. With that said, I had a professor once who could scan long reports in seconds and give detailed feedback. Maybe I just need more practice. Thank for the great post. I just did the exercises in the article. Great post…as always. I practiced photoreading quite a bit in college while cramming for exams.

I found that I could not effectively recall the information for essay questions and oral exams, but it seemed to really help with multiple choice questions. Then again, maybe I just got good at taking MC tests. Any way I have been implimenting 4-HWW principals for about 2 years now and am loving life on my own terms!

Thanks again and best of luck on your next book amigo! Sometimes for me it is hard to deal with the fact that education is not directly income generating. Let me add to this something that I learned when I took my first speed reading course. I did it when I was an institutional broker for a large investment bank in London. He was teaching a class in Oxford. His first student came into the room and sat very near him. Seinfeld would have called him a close talker, I believe. As the tuition began, the first speed reading accessment came in.

On average, most people read about words per minute, or about as fast as we talk, as we sound the words in our head as we read. This kid came in at 1, words per minute. The instructor was astounded. Now most people, after trying and improving a few times, you can get over 1, words — I hit over 1, per minute — but it takes a couple of tries. This kid was doing 1, per minute every time, without the tuition.

They just look at shapes. Much like Su Doku, which is NOT a numbers game, just a game played with numbers, you need to get 9 shapes in a square, row, or line without repeating.

I think it will stick with practice. Great post Tim, and awesome comment Sean about the deaf person who is seeing the word versus saying it in his mind! Good things really do come to those who wait! You have both refuelled my drive to research alternate ways of teaching my struggling students to read. You have singlehandedly managed to change my way of learning, you introduced me to subvocalization and the effects it has on my reading efficiency..

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Thanks for posting this. Finally someone tells us the actual science behind speed reading. This stuff actually works. I suggest you review you referencing. People are judgrd by the company they keep.

Great post! I shot my Words Per Minute WPM rate up very quickly from to with just a few practice runs using this easy and fun program!!

Interesting post. I was considering the speed reading exercises for some time now. At least when it comes to casual reading for pleasure I mean.

However when it comes to work I would really like to improve my speed. I often need to look through hundreds of pages in a short time. I have yet to do the exercise but I am hopeful for the wpm increase.

I will be testing it in a foreign language, namely Polish. I thought it would be interesting if we could compare the results for different languages.

You said it was tested in five Which ones? Good post. Has this been posted before? Maybe it was in the book? I remember it from someplace.

Naysayers, it really works. But thats usually after a couple days living in airports. Thanks to all of you for the great comments and dialogue! You said that the above post is a concise version of the actual course you taught at Princeton.

Could you post the pdf containing transcripts of the entire course material so that those interested in following the entire PX project seminar, could go through all the contents of that course. Tim, very interesting post indeed. For online material, I recommend spreed! Set the speed to 4 times target, read it, then 2 times target, read it, then target speed. You will not understand the first two passes, but will do surprisingly well at your target speed!

Also, use this bookmarklet, which I modified from the site to handle apostrophes and bad Unicode characters:. Cool website Chloe! I hope to meet you one day and have been a big fan for years! Interesting thing TIm! Thanks but how to apply this with reading on computer screen? Any idea? I have the same concern with my mobile phone. I read a lot on its little screen but I feel it is not fast enough. Do I need to train it as a habit?

I already haphazardly picked up speed reading principles and do use them when comprehension load is light. Will I see a further major cognitive processing benefit by practicing? Or is the real bottleneck cognition past a certain basic proficiency?

For example, when consciously using physical saccajumps I will still regress back to ponder over new things, like the sacca word. Does this go away with training? Or is cognition the bottleneck at that point? I agree with JB. I found myself naturally doing that.

If you build a two-dimensional map of the text in your head, piecing it together using alternating ends of a line lets you scan the page faster. Sounds just like the adapted version of an Evelyn Wood-style speed reading class I took as a kid in high school. Here are some comments that fit with my experience;. I remember seeing someone speed read in high school and always lwanted to learn. I forgot about this for a long time. Really, thanks for posting this.

I need to read much faster… would save me tons of time with my website and other job. Just read about this in your book the other day. Back-reading is a major issue when it comes to increasing your speed, so these are great tips. If you read this article, you can pretty much scrap any speed-reading book out there. This is an excellent summary, written in readable English, of what countless books on the subject with regurgitate.

This is a prime example of results vs. Just things I picked up while trying to finish schoolwork faster. A lot of very specific information here; thanks for sharing.

As a person who is a slow reader with excellent recall, I look forward to trying out this technique. Does anyone have any good recommendations for a book to practice this on that meets the requirements pg, lays flat, etc.

Interesting stuff. My question is can you turn it off? After conditioning the brain to read this way, can you simply gear back down and read at a normal pace? I ask because I am one of those people in the world he reads just for the pure enjoyment.

But if I train my brain that fast is the new normal and then want to go back to regular speed, will it be a constant process of learning and then unlearning?

Thank you very much. Greetings from the Netherlands. I read your book, and this article reminded me this technique. I need to put this technique into practice.

That kind of techniques clearly help you to increase your reading speed. Basically they are the same things I teach in my speed reading courses. I think there is at least one important thing what has not turned much attention in this post, but what is vital for achieving good comprehension at high speeds.

You have to fully focus to the text you are reading. The main reason behind poor concentration is that we let our thoughts to wander away form the text. Because of that we do not remember what we read even if we read at slow speed. Actually reading at faster pace can help you to increase your comprehension if you concnetration abilities are poor. Consider an example of driving a car. Assume that you are driving at 30mph at any empty highway. If you are driving that slow then you can shave your beard, eat hamburgers and read newspaper while driving and you will still not crash.

Now assume that you are driving at mph. Now there is no possibility to read newspaper while driving. The same principle applies to reading. We also need to read words in order, so a zigzag pattern would likely impair reading instead of giving it a boost.

When our eyes dart back and forth, it isn't wasted motion; it's actually helping us to fully understand the text. Other speed-reading techniques teach readers to suppress the inner voice you hear when reading, based on the assumption that this voice slows you down. But research suggests the opposite: that eliminating this voice makes it harder for you to understand what you're reading. In recent years, numerous apps have claimed they can crank up reading speed without putting you through any training at all.

These apps display text just one word at a time, one after another at a certain rate. That way, your eyes are forced to focus on the word in front of you. But again, the eyes sometimes have to go back and reread words to fully grasp text.

And even though the eyes can only focus on a small region in their field of view, research has found that your eyes pick up important information beyond the word in focus — something that is simply not possible if you can only read one word at a time. To be sure, reading speed varies a lot. Due to a variety of factors, some people just happen to be faster readers , Schotter said.

They might have better working memory or are faster at processing information. But claims that people can triple their reading speed or more e. Studies have found that these speed readers don't fully grasp the material. In skimming, you're hunting for certain words, passages and sentences. A good skimmer can capture the main ideas of a text pretty quickly — especially if they're already familiar with the topic — but they'll also miss out on details and nuance.

So is there a way to become a faster reader? You probably can't dramatically increase your speed, but research suggests you can get a little faster by improving your vocabulary and simply reading more. Good thing there's plenty out there to read. Originally published on Live Science. Live Science. See all comments I learned speed reading in 7th grade AP.

Down side-novels don't last long. I started an on-line speed-reading course many years ago. The ideas expressed in this opinion piece are just that - opinion.