How Speed Reading Works: 6 Steps to Perfect Reading

Learning how to speed read can change your life forever. The amount of time saved, the improved learning potential, and the new ability to process information at incredible rates are only a few of the benefits that you will experience after learning how to speed read. Speed reading itself has been around since the 1950's, and methods of learning can be found on all sorts of media including books as well as in audio and video formats. In the past few years, Speed Reading Software has been made available to the general consumer which provides students with the technological advantage to learn how to speed read quickly and easily.

As you continue reading, we will be covering the 5 main steps that can be taken to help you improve your reading speed and reach impressive rates. Each individual step will help you increase your reading speed slightly, but when combined you can achieve truly phenomenal results.

1. Mind Set
Overcoming distractions and possessing the ability to concentrate will make one of the most significant and noticeable increase to your reading speed. You will spend more time involved with the material instead of answering your phone, texting, adjusting your position, using the bathroom, etc. Go to a quiet place where you surely will not be disturbed, position yourself comfortably, turn off your phone, listen to white noise on your headphones, and have a goal set on what you hope to gain from the reading material in front of you.

2. Reading Technique
Sit straight in your chair, tilt your head slightly forward, and angle the book towards you (45 degrees). This can be done using 2 or 3 books as a stand. Use your fingertips or a pen to underline exactly where you are reading. As you come to the end of a page, prepare to turn to the next one. Don't be afraid to take notes.

3. Sub-vocalization
When all of us learned how to read, we were instructed to read aloud to the teacher with the sole reason being to make sure we were doing it right. However, most adults have never learned to move past this phase and continue to read aloud, in their minds. The voice you hear when reading is known as sub-vocalization. Since you are only able to talk so fast, this puts a cap on your reading speed, and limits your potential. Learning how to cancel out the voice in your mind allows you to reach supersonic reading speeds.

4. Multi-Word Focus
Your mind is much more incredible than we are taught to believe. It is more powerful than the most expensive computer in existence, and if trained properly, can handle mass amounts of information. Reading one word at a time is comparable to typing using the Hunt and Peck method, where you search for each letter individually and use only your forefingers to type; Very inefficient, to say the least. Learning how to read multiple words at once, will save tons of time, increase comprehension, and obviously increase your reading speed.

5. Strengthening Your Peripheral Vision
Your eyes are designed to clearly focus where you look. However, you can still see out of the sides of your eyes (your peripherals), even though it may not be as clear. There are certain exercises that train your mind to improve your peripherals, and make the image appear much clearer. This will help improve your scanning ability, allow you to see entire paragraphs at once, and certain studies have shown an improvement in overall vision.

6. Stopping Regression
Regression, more commonly known as re-reading, is one of the main issues that slow down a reader's speed. Have you ever come to the bottom of a page, and realized that you have absolutely no idea what you had just read? Almost everyone has, and the natural instinct is to re-read the text in hopes of picking it up the second time. Untrained readers spend one quarter to one third of their actual reading time, re-reading. That means that for every hour spent in front of the book, only 40-45 minutes of actual reading was gained. Ways to stop this, are improving your concentration, having a goal in mind of what you want to gain from the material, and taking breaks every 25 minutes or so. This will help you keep on task and make your time spent reading more effective.