Speed Reading
Posted on | November 25, 2009 | 3 Comments
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Part of me thinks that any speed reading method, especially the commercial ones, is bogus. Another part of me has always been intrigued by the idea of speed reading. The more you read, the better you get at it. You will read a bit faster and generally maintain or improve your comprehension. What about these crazy methods that claim you can triple your reading speed or read thousands of words per minute with normal accuracy?
The book lover in me thinks: the more I can read, the faster I can read it, the better. I would love to read a few novels each week in a minimal amount of time. I was excited when I came across Scott H Young’s post about reading on Think Simple Now, 7 keys to Reading Faster. It’s an informative post with some useful, if not new, tips to improve your reading speed and keep accuracy. It’s worth checking out.
The speed reading wiki surprised me. It’s an in-depth look at different methodologies (commercial and non-commerical). The wiki also goes into the history of speed reading and it’s validity. I’ve never tried any type of system to improve my reading speed or accuracy, except trying to just make myself read more quickly, which always lowers my comprehension. I think I’m at a point that I’d actually try some type of training to see if it works, just not sure which one, and I know I’m not going to pay gobs of money for it.
Now I have to ask: Have any of you tried any Speed Reading methods or programs? Did it work? Did it cost you? What is your take overall on speed reading?
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3 Responses to “Speed Reading”
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November 27th, 2009 @ 3:33 pm
I read a lot of technical texts and sometimes take very long to read. I wanted to learn to read faster and read a book about speed reading. 150+ pages and the basic message was “try harder to read fast and when you do you’ll automatically concentrate more.” Another message from the book made more sense to me. It was to prioritize your readings. Now, when I know a text is not of high quality and is not important for me I read mostly very fast and look for keywords I expect. That really works.
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