Someone who quickly runs through the text with his eyes, for example, at a speed of 3000 characters per minute, but assimilates only 20% of the information reads slowly, at a speed of only 600 characters per minute. Reading with the omission of important information is not always acceptable. It is preferable if you just need to look through the text to find something specific. But after all, you can read quickly, while understanding everything and memorizing everything you need. The reading speed of up to 600 characters per minute is considered very slow, from 900 characters per minute – slow, from 1500 characters per minute – normal, from 3000 characters per minute – fast. It is possible to read at “panoramic” speeds — 10,000 or more characters per minute.
These figures are very, very conditional. For reading, for example, a self-help book on a foreign language, can not be indicative in any way. The skill of fast reading is very handy for journalists, editors, and students who might be also interested in essay writing help to improve their grades. The texts differ greatly in their informativeness and readability. Textbooks should be read slowly, and fast reading is well suited for repeating what has been studied, even if the material seemed difficult at the first slow reading.
The advantages of quick thinking are obvious. But these advantages when reading are negated if a person cannot quickly read information. In addition, if attention is spent on reading, then this slows down the speed of thinking.
You can learn fast reading by doing special exercises, some of which attract unnecessary extraneous attention, but you can learn by simply changing your way of reading. The second approach is more natural and more beautiful.
The principles of fast reading
There is no need to hurry. The speed of reading should not exceed the speed of understanding. Reading at a speed exceeding the speed of comprehension is a waste of time and strengthening a bad habit. To learn to read fast, you need to learn to read slowly. Unfortunately, in fast-reading courses, this is often forgotten and, on the contrary, they are set up for haste. The one who tries to move faster than his speed, in a hurry, blocks the development of abilities and reduces his natural speed. The one who moves at his speed is moving extremely slowly in development. The one who moves a little slower than his speed develops his abilities, and his natural speed increases.
This applies not only to reading but also to any activity. Probably, those who have been reading for pleasure since childhood, without hurrying, naturally learned to read quickly.
There is no such tension of consciousness that would make fast reading possible, so there is no need to strive for it and there is no need to look for such tension. Your task is to mobilize the resources of the “unconscious”, which, ensures successful work. Similarly, a person who has unreasonable demands on his soul cannot work well.
Reading without regressions
Those who have not studied effective reading, read, chaotically — his gaze repeatedly returns to what he has already read. Haste makes returns more frequent. Such jumps, called regressions, reduce not only the speed of reading but also attention — why be careful if you can go back and reread? Jumping from one place of the text to another, for example, from the beginning of the text to the end and back, also has a bad effect on the quality of reading. The first condition for fast reading is the rejection of unnecessary returns to what you read, the development of the habit of reading only forward. This approach applies not only to fast reading but also to any work. In general, all those principles that work in fast reading work in other areas of life.
Reading without articulation
The habit of understanding only what has been spoken limits the speed of reading, because you can read several times faster than speaking. Usually reading is accompanied by unconscious articulation, but you can learn to read in silence. To do this, use, for example, the following exercises.
Traditional exercise – knock-rhythm
To suppress articulation when reading, you can use the knock-rhythm exercise – a combination of reading with tapping not the simplest, but also not the most complex rhythm. At first, it is not possible to combine reading with tapping. Then it turns out to read without understanding and memorizing. Next – read with understanding, but without memorizing. And finally – to read, understand, remember. We use peripheral vision Reading each letter slows down reading and does not contribute to understanding. The one who sees several letters at once, the whole word, is in a more advantageous position. Some can see not only short but also long lines in their entirety, grasp whole paragraphs or even a page at a glance. If a person sees the whole line, then his eyes no longer zigzag, and he does not have to waste time going back to the beginning of the next line. He can read very fast – with a vertical eye movement. With the help of exercises to expand (more precisely, to clarify) vision in about a month, you can activate those abilities that were available, but remained unclaimed. So physical exercises quickly return the tone to muscles unaccustomed to work. The development takes place from month to month, from year to year — there is no need to count on a quick result. But the clarification of vision is worth the effort, it gives an advantage not only when reading. It means, neither more nor less, a clear mind and good health.
The exercise can be done with music. Contemplation of the page with a green dot is proposed to be carried out for three months before going to bed, for a few minutes every day. Fixing your gaze on the green dot, try to see the whole page. It is seen at first vaguely, but then, suddenly, for a moment, there is a clearing of the gaze. Such moments of clarity indicate the expansion of vision.
Reading with contemplation
You can contemplate pages without green dots. While slowly reading some simple text, stop a little for contemplation. The gaze should not be rigidly fixed, but, no matter where it is directed to the page, you should try to see it in its entirety. Then you can continue reading slowly again to take a break to contemplate the page again.
In front of the screen, both in the cinema and at the TV, looking at the screen, you can see it entirely using peripheral vision, not following an interesting object with eye movement, but following only with attention.
The cat’s eye can be performed, walking in the park or in another beautiful place where there are no cars, to look only forward and see everything around. If you don’t want to embarrass passers-by with a “hypnotic” look, put on dark glasses.
Skipping useless parts
Those who read quickly, disconnected parts of the text that do not communicate anything significant, pass faster, those who do not know how to read quickly, slow down in these places, trying to comprehend what lacks meaning.
It is not necessary to fixate on the low content. It is necessary to see the banal and repeatedly said, as something that is not worth spending attention on. It is not always necessary to remember the author’s name, publisher, date, the title of the article. The one who sets the task to memorize all this and at the same time read several articles daily sets the task commensurate with learning a foreign language without repetition, from the first time, in between.
You only need to remember the really important things. Sometimes you need to remember the author’s name (if the author is interested in something), the date of publication (if it matters), and so on — but not always, and you can not read meaningless literature at all.
Note the most important information (“integral algorithm”)
On the necessary information, you should slow down, as if to designate it with pauses, a decrease in speed. This helps to remember and comprehend, but it practically does not reduce the speed of reading. The pause doesn’t have to be long. What is most important in the text – everyone decides for himself. The editor, for example, always sees how well the text is written and how the idea is presented. The psychoanalyst sees the game of the “unconscious” leading his line. A politician is everything that characterizes an opponent, demonstrates his weaknesses. Scriptwriter – opportunities for writing a script.
However, when reading any text, it is always suggested to pay attention to:
- the main idea
- main arguments
- new, original information
- controversial unfounded information
- hidden suggestions
- things that can be applied in your life