So in my quest to develop useful skills (and non useful ones like the ability to eat spicy food without praying to the porcelain gods for salvation), I've decided I want to learn how to speed read. Anyone have good suggestions? I've skipped around the internet and found ways to defeat the saccades and improve block reading, but if there's anyone out there with tips that worked for them, I'm all ears.

Sarlacc83 wrote:I'm all ears.

That's a problem. You need eyes to speed read.

Check your local junior high schools, they usually have a speed reading class that you can access.

I've always been a reader, a pocket book rarely makes it through an evening for me.

But in my early work years I was a janitor at a junior high and I met the teacher that taught that class. He tested me and I was really fast already but learned to be faster.

I have two speeds. If the book isn't really interesting me and I just want to get it over with I blast way past 2,000 words a minute cause I'm just getting the high points. I have really good comprehension even at that speed.

But if I'm really interested in a book I don't go quite as fast and read words rather than groups of words,(that's the secret to most speed reading)

But for me if you want to gain reading speed then put all other crap away and read. You have to use your entire mind to teach yourself to read/comprehend faster. Its mostly about you rather than something else. When I read,,,I GO THERE.

Give you an example. Today I finally got around to reading Seahawk Sailor's sciphy novella, it was great. Read it in about 10 minutes. Granted its short but I loved the set up and idea behind it, and am hungry for more. Read stuff you're interested in at first to gain speed and it will carry over.

I've been considering taking a class in speed reading just so I can finish a post by Kearly or Sharkie.

Your brain can handle information faster than you think. Stop trying to say the words in your head when you read, since you can read much much faster than you speak.

Get a book and time yourself reading a whole page or paragraph, then repeat that and try and do it faster. Put a pen under the words where you are and constantly move forward, a lot of people read slower because they are always going back because they think they missed a word, but if you force yourself forward all the time you will stop missing words.

That's it. Seriously pretty much every speed reading course will be a variation of forcing you to read faster than you think you can. There are programs that will put words onto a screen and the words will drop off faster and faster, forcing you to read faster (the pen method) and many will just have you read a paragraph on a screen while timing you, then they will ask you questions about the paragraph, and then give you another with the same amount of words but a different one and force you to read it faster and then ask questions about that one too.

People tend to overthink how hard things to do with the brain are, like speed reading, card counting, and even getting a "super-memory" is quite simple. That doesn't mean its easy, just simple. It just takes practice, a little hard (and sometimes tedious) work.

The method I was shown was a couple of words, then more words, then more words at once. They trick is not limiting yourself to just a group of words. When you really get cooking you will find you are taking in the words at the center of your vision but will also be just ending the group of words previously while taking in the start of the next line.

Once you train yourself to do that storys just fly by. My old boss at O'Reilly's was also a very fast reader. We would be passing around the latest office memo. Her and I would read it in a flash and stand around tapping our feet waiting for the others to form each word as they looked at the page.

Drove us crazy! lol

It's all about grouping of the words. Think about a slinky going down a flight a stairs. Look at a group of words (normally 5) and move on to the next just like a slinky moves down the stairs.

Basically how this works is, your brain has already seen all of the words, but you just aren't use to thinking that fast while reading. As you move further and further into a paragraph, context starts to kick in, and your brain fills in the holes, since it's already "seen" the other words.

Speed reading really helps on reading comprehension tests. First, speed read the paragraphs, then regular read the questions. Even if you don't know the answer to the question, you'll be amazed at how your brain knows where the answer is in whatever paragraph.