Read Faster, Read Smarter

By Michael Southon

The Internet is a new continent where the maps are
constantly changing. What was a small stream becomes a
roaring river. What was a desert becomes a lush green
valley.

To keep up with the changing landscape of the Internet
you must read. And the best place to read about new
developments on the Internet is in Newsletters or
Ezines.

But you may not be reading efficiently.

Did you know that most of us use only 4% to 10% of our
mental abilities?

Speed reading is not just about reading faster; it's
about learning to use much more of the extraordinary
powers of the Mind.

When you read, are you aware of an inner voice that
follows the words as your eyes move across the page or
the computer screen? This inner voice is called
'subvocalization'. You probably experience it as a
slight movement in the tongue or throat region. As
long as you subvocalize, you limit your reading to the
speed of normal speech, to about 300 w.p.m.

The Mind is capable of thinking much faster than that.
So when you subvocalize, you're literally holding back
your mind.

Try this exercise:

As you read, count to yourself, silently, from one to
ten. Or, repeat the sound 'Eee', 'Eee', 'Eee'. It will
be impossible to do this at the same time as
subvocalizing, so this is an excellent way of breaking
the habit of subvocalization.

As you do this exercise, you'll become aware that
you're no longer processing the words in the
tongue/throat region but in an area called 'thought
stream' that you experience in the top of your head.

Thought stream moves much faster than subvocalization.
And that's why people who subvocalize often have
comprehension problems.

There's a mismatch between reading speed and thinking
speed. The Mind is constantly racing ahead of the
inner voice and so it gets bored. You experience this
as an inability to hold your attention on what you're
reading. You have to back-skip words, or read the same
line twice.

As your reading speed catches up with your thinking
speed, reading becomes much less tiring and your
comprehension improves.

Once you've got a feeling for reading in 'thought
stream', the next thing to do is speed up your eye
movements. This will also help break the habit of
sub-vocalization, since your eyes will be moving
faster than you can possibly subvocalize.

Your eyes move across the written page in a series of
quick jumps. Between each jump there's a stop lasting
a fraction of second, called a 'fixation'. The
fixation is when the eye actually takes in the written
word.

The untrained eye takes about a quarter of a second at
each fixation, and takes in 2 or 3 words per fixation.

By speeding up you eye movements, you'll learn to make
fewer fixations per line and take in more words per
fixation.

Try this exercise:

If you use a glass 'anti-glare' screen, draw 2
vertical lines in felt-tip, 5 cms apart, so that you
have a strip 5 cms wide located over the middle of the
text you are reading.

Now move your eyes in a 'Z' pattern down this central
strip, at a speed faster slightly faster than is
comfortable.

Because your Mind is not reading each word, it is
forced to 'fill in the gaps'. This engages much more
of the Mind, since it has to build associations and
patterns in the written material. This in turn leads
to greater comprehension and increased memory of what
was read.

This technique takes advantage of the fact that much
of written English is highly redundant; a lot of words
can be skipped without any loss of meaning.

When your eyes move down a central strip of the text,
you also engage much more of your peripheral vision.
And that in turn brings the right hemisphere of the
brain into the reading process. You make much more use
of the right-brain's ability to synthesize and build
relationships within the material.

So speed reading is not just about reading faster; it
also allows you to access much more of the brain and
thereby increases your comprehension and creativity.

For an excellent, free, speed-reading course, visit:

- The Speed Reading Course
[http://www.trans4mind.u-net.com/speed_reading/index.html]

 Here are some more free speed-reading sites:

 - The Study Hall Free Speed Reading Programs
  rel=nofollow http://www.studyhall.com/sread.htm

- Road To Reading Home [http://www.roadtoreading.org/]

- University of Texas Speed Reading
[http://www.utexas.edu/student/lsc/sprdg.html]

 - Speed Reading Links
  rel=nofollow http://www.readingsoft.com/flinks.html

 - ReadRace: Free Java application for speed reading
[http://supershareware.co.uk/Apps/8080.asp]

 - WannaLearn.com: Personal Enrichment : Speed Reading
  rel=nofollow http://www.wannalearn.com/Personal_Enrichment/Speed_Reading/

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Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3

years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this

simple technique to build a successful online business. Click

here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/

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Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com

Learn to Read Faster With These Proven Yet Simple Methods

By Douglas Robert

If you think "speed reading" only works for some people, think again. Not only is it possible to learn to read faster, it's actually easy to do so. If you keep reading the way you learned as a child, you can't expect a vastly different result. Most people get stuck there.

But if you learn and implementation some new techniques, you can significantly improve your reading rate. One thing you'll need to remember though is this: for any improvement to last, you'll have to practice. That means using these techniques regularly.

Your very first step to faster reading is to get to grip on the material in advance. Gain an overview of the book you're about to read. Check out the front and back covers, as well as the inside sleeve of the dust jacket. This usually gives you an overview -- a general understanding of the material covered. Next, scan through the table of contents, introduction, the concluding chapter and any appendices included.

Your intention is to quickly piece together a framework of the text. This helps you make sense of the major points the author wants to convey. As you preview the material, create a mental mind map - a basic structure of the text as you understand it at this early juncture. What you're essentially doing is "framing" the material so your brain can more easily grasp it.

After scanning the major sections above, preview the most dominant visual components of the book, one chapter at a time. This includes titles, sub-titles, bold, italicized, highlighted or different colored text. Take note of anything that stands out on the page including text boxes, call-outs, photographs, charts and graphs, illustrations and so on. Remember, you are still in the previewing stage, so continue to scan at a rapid pace.

In just minutes, you can preview the entire text and have a broad grasp of the content in advance of reading every page. Previewing gives you the confidence to read faster, knowing that you're not going to miss out on any significant information. Now as you begin to read, you're doing so with a foundational understanding of the material presented.

You will learn to read faster simply by previewing the content and piecing together the structure of a book in your mind in advance. It simply means changing the way you were taught to read in the beginning.

Old habits are the number one obstacle to faster reading. Most of us learned words by sounding out individual letters, then syllables, then words and phrases. and it's this very process that causes most people to read at a rate far below their capacity. Change your ways and you can dramatically improve your reading speed. And the first habit to about with nonfiction material is to gain a structural overview of the content as a preliminary step.

As you venture into the actual reading of the text, begin to take in larger chunks of information. The brain has an amazing ability to absorb information rapidly, but many never expand beyond a basic reading level.

You can learn to read faster when you begin to scoop up phrases, lines, sentences and paragraphs in single scoops. Taking in bigger bites actually aids in comprehension because it provides contextual meaning. You're no longer reading individual words, but complete thoughts and ideas as units. As you descend down the written page, you are fully engaged and attentive.

Reading at a faster rate requires focus. You can't achieve breakthrough speeds without a concentrated effort.

Speed reading is active reading. That's why you need to look for clues as you go. With each new section, ask yourself -- What is the main idea here? Investigate as you proceed. Seek out the essential information by asking - why did the author include this segment?

Anyone can learn to read faster. Adopting these ideas and applying them habitually will make a dramatic difference in your reading speed. But like any other worthwhile skill, repetition is the key to turning simple information into real value for you.

Want to   learn to read faster today? You absolutely can! All it takes are a few basic techniques and you can easily double or triple your reading rate. Anyone can do this -- what about YOU? Visit my site now for more FREE TIPS, techniques, tactics and helpful resources: http://www.speedreadtips.com

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/