Benefits Of Speed Reading

July 18, 2016

Once you have learnt how to speed-read, you will realize how beneficial it is and how much smarter you feel. When you are able to maximize the amount of knowledge you absorb in the shortest amount of time, you will feel more encouraged to read more and learn more. In addition to this, your comprehension skills will be more polished.
Speed reading is not just about faster reading. It is about being able to comprehend the information better and being able to retain it for much longer. Speed reading is a perfect skill to boost your IQ level and unlock unchartered possibilities with the faster brain cells and more time that come with it.
It will allow you to stay updated and knowledgeable in this competitive world and broaden your horizons. Speed reading actually DOES increase your brain’s processing ability and ability to remember things. You could become the most popular guy wherever you go, like Bradley Cooper in Limitless.
Benefits
There are several other benefits including:
You Improve Your Memory
Your brain is a muscle and like any other muscle in the body, it gets better if you train it. It will grow stronger and perform better. Speed reading is a way to get our brains to grow stronger and perform at a higher level. If you train your brain to take in information faster, parts of your brain, including the memory, improve. The memory works like a stabilizer muscle that gets worked when you speed read.
You Achieve an Improved Focus
Though the average person can read up to 200 words per minute, there are some who can read up to 300 words per minute. The first reason is they detach themselves from the conventional way of reading which we have all been taught because, believe it or not, it is probably the worst way to read and learn. Second is that the average human is not usually attentive.
When we read, our mind usually wanders and becomes occupied in thoughts. So, it may look like you are reading but you are not. Speed reading solves this problem and increases your focus and attention-span.
Increases Your Self-Confidence
You are mostly, if not always, the smartest and most well-read person in the room. This is usually the result of being able to learn anything from any walk of life faster once you can read and comprehend at super-human speeds. Improving your ability to read and learn faster opens doors for you and you find there are more options for you in life.
Everything comes into perspective and you are able to interpret and analyze things on a deeper conscious level. Regardless of whether you read fiction or non-fiction, you will benefit from it and develop your skills when you speed-read. By being able to comprehend and perceive things at a deeper level, you get a great confidence boost.
You Acquire Better Logical Skills
Reading is the best exercise for your brain. It trains your mind to read faster and the brain becomes efficient at organizing information and finding the correlation between information stored in the past to the one being fed at that moment. This makes it easier for you to connect analogies and interpret events that are similar to each other, thus advancing your problem-solving skills.
The more you practice and increase your reading speed, the faster this process takes place and automatically you will notice your logic has progressed as you get used to responding quickly to things that took you ages before.
You Grow Emotionally
Reading can release endorphins, your happy hormone, and make you feel happier and brighter. It helps to reduce the stress by getting your mind off worries and day-to-day stress including thoughts that are negative and not beneficial for your health. When you speed-read, you will notice you will be even more absorbed in the material and feel more connected to your content.
This increases your focus by default on the information you read. This can also be called ‘active-meditation’ which is a contemplative state that can be achieved by doing an activity, in this case speed-reading. This helps to release tension and raises your emotional well-being.
Stages of Reading
Quit Sub-Vocalization: Stop Talking To Yourself
In order to stop sub-vocalization, chew gum or begin humming your favorite song or one that you have kept on replay for a long time. This helps you keep your muscles occupied and ensures you don’t repeat the words. If you have the tendency to move your lips to read, you can hold a finger against them.
Hide the Words You Have Already Read
You can use an index card to cover words as soon as you read them. This will keep you from going back to what you just read and help you avoid lingering.
Train Your Eyes to Make Lesser Movement
More often than not, the simple reason for your time being wasted while you are reading is because your eyes seem to be ‘fidgeting.’ A good way to avoid this is by using an index card and holding it in front of a line of text and making an X on the card immediately above your first word.
Next, write another X on the same line and place the card every three words to skim through the main points. You should keep making Xs at the same spacing distance until you reach the last word of the line. Try reading quickly and swiftly along the index card while simultaneously focusing your eyes right below the X.
Maintain a Pace That Is Faster Than You Can Understand
Here, you need anything that can help you guide through the text, e.g. a pencil or pointer. Move the guide along the text as you say ‘one one thousand’ at a calm pace and finish exactly when you are at the end of the line.
You should spend at least two minutes with the pace of the pencil. It is alright if you do not understand and comprehend anything as all that is required is you remain focused on the text and keep your eyes moving for a complete two minutes. Pause for two and then go faster.
Move Forward While You Are Skimming the Text
It’s best to get an understanding, even if little, of the text to move forward.
Read What the Content Is About
You must make sure you familiarize yourself with whatever you are reading. This will enable you to handle the concepts much easily.
Maintain the Subject in Each Paragraph
If you know the subject of each paragraph, it will help you to move through the text more quickly with better understanding. Most of the times, the first sentence is the topic sentence of what the story is about.
Time Yourself While You Read
While you read, you should track your speed. Use online counters or the number of pages or even the number of words in a line and multiply it by the number of lines on the page.
Try setting the timer for ten minutes and note how much you can read in that time. Multiply the pages by the number of words on each page and divide it by ten. This will give you your words per minute rate.
Maintain Goals
Practice makes perfect. If you keep practicing your reading, you can gradually move up the various levels that are calculated by words per minute. Beginning from 12 years old at 200-250 words per minute, 300 words for a college student, and 450 words per minute for a college student’s skimming speed, 600-700 words per minute and lastly 1000 wpm which is reached by the pro-readers.
Most of us can comprehend 75% at 450 words per minute but at 1000 words per minute the average human loses retaining ability. Pro-readers use extreme techniques to reach this level.
Now that you know the benefits of speed-reading, it’s time for us to move on to how you can become a superhuman reader.