How to Speed-Read (With an Electronic dictionary)

Speed-reading is a really useful skill to have. Speed reading is a set of techniques that help you read faster without losing comprehension of the text. It is really helpful if you need to read a lot of books, articles and research papers like during the university history classes or for PhD research. It is also really useful if you want to read a lot of books for your personal development. If you are a college student, this is one of the most important skill to gain. So we have made a list of a few techniques you can use to increase your reading speed. Go through the list and tell us which technique helped you the most.

1.       Pen as a tracker: While reading, always keep a pen in hand. Use the pen to underline each line and focus on reading only the word above the tip of the pen. You don’t have to actually underline the words. Just use the pen as a tracer while you reading to keep you focused. You can increase or decrease your speed by speeding up your pace of underlining the words.

2.      When starting out, don’t spend more than 1 second per line. Don’t worry about comprehension. Just focus and see the words. You don’t need to understand anything. Whatever you do, don’t slow down below 1 second. The pen would act as your tracker and pacer.

3.      Next when you are a bit comfortable with the above 2 techniques, then you can increase your speed some more and read each line within ½ second. Again, don’t worry about comprehension. Just focus and see the words. The main point is to get your brain and eyes used to reading fast. Keep doing this exercise.

4.      Another technique to start reading a line from the 2nd word, rather than the first word. Also stop reading on the 2nd last word. Keep up your pace of 1 second per line. Don’t worry about comprehension. Just try to exercise your peripheral vision to read the words you are not tracing.

5.      Now instead of the 2nd word, start reading from the 3rd word and stop reading on the 3rd last word. Keep up your consistent speed of 1 second per line by using the pen.

6.      When you are used to the above techniques, now practice reading starting from the 3rd word at the speed of ½ second per line. Like the above technique, stop reading on the 3rd last word. You are again training your peripheral words to pick up the surrounding words.

7.      Lastly, keep an electronicdictionary bookmark at hand. The dictionary itself acts as a bookmark so you don’t have to waste time to get up and get your dictionary. You just need to type in the words, and you’ll find out what it means.

Have you started these speed-reading exercise? Leave us a comment.