Things You Did Not Know About Speed Reading Exercises
Speed reading exercises are meant to make the reader read faster while still retaining and understanding well enough what he reads. There are a few different ways about speed reading but the main object is to maintain a good compromise between going faster and understanding. Also to be noted; a good amount of practice is required.
Speed readers may use different techniques like not sounding-out all words, recognizing words without focusing on each letter and generally skimming over the text. Some methods may come more naturally to the reader and these will be defined with practice and exercises. In general, the idea is to get your eyes to move faster and recognize words at a glance.
Skimming is the way a reader can search visually through a text for clues to what the meaning of the article might be. In general, skimming is not considered the most effective method for texts that are denser in information because it doesn’t lead to a great comprehension. Oppositely, this method is effective to grasp the essential meaning of a text.
Meta guiding is another way of speed reading and may be the most popular to speed up your reading process. In meta guiding, the reader has to guide the eyes along the lines of text by following a pointer in the form of a pen or a finger. This following forces the eyes to speed up and discourages subvocalization.
There is a basic speed reading exercise associated with this method that consists of pacing yourself with your finger and going through a text while accelerating the speed at which you’d normally read across a line. The reader should gradually accelerate the movement of the finger and force the eyes to distinguish words quickly and increase the speed at which one reads.
There is a second exercise possible to learn speed reading skills and that consists of skimming over the text and look for key words tying into the meaning of every sentence. This exercise implies reading in blocks and there are other more complicated exercises that repeat this method.
This third exercise needs a little bit of preparation time and some index cards. Blocks of words, phrases or sentence fragments will need to be written on the index cards. The exercise itself consists of reading what is written on the index cards instead of reading an integral text. During a few minutes, one must quickly scroll through the index cards while recognizing the set of words that are on every card. In practicality, this increases the recognition of words and accelerates the speed of reading fragments of sentences.
In general, in order for speed reading exercises to be effective, some time must be invested. A rule of thumb is that it is recommended to have a good level of energy and have a good level of concentration to practice these exercises. To see worth while results, it takes time and lots of practice. Reading really fast is possible all the while keeping a good comprehension and retention of what is being read.
Speed reading is a great skill to have in the academic and professional worlds. It is rather easy to learn this skill and doesn’t require a financial investment. All that is necessary are speed reading exercises, a little patience and some determination.
