How to improve your reading speed (cont.)
Now that you know what can slow your reading speed down (see speed reading, part 1), what about ways to increase your reading speed?
There are many techniques and concepts that you can implement to increase your reading speed but the main goal, as a test taker, should be to become as efficient as you can when reading and studying for an exam. Comprehension and efficiency should always take priority over sheer speed.
Essentially, speed reading is achieved by learning specific reading skills - skills that need to be practiced routinely in order to see any worthwhile improvements. The key is repetition and training. You need to unlearn your old habits while learning new techniques. Chances are you've been reading for a couple of decades or so, so unlearning old habits takes a bit of doing.
Below are a few techniques that relate specifically to test takers, but remember that there are many books and other training materials on the subject that you should explore if you are interested in taking the concept further. If you intend to remain in the I.T. business for any length of time then chances are you'll be doing a lot of studying. Speed reading might well be worth the time and effort to learn.
You may be surprised just how much more effective your reading can become by just practicing these simple techniques. It’s probably best to practice these techniques away from your study routine as you’ll probably be focusing more on the reading exercises than the computer certification that you’re trying to study for. Once you’re comfortable with your new method of reading, introduce it to your study regime. If you wish to develop your skills further then there are plenty of books that cover the subject in much more detail. This is by no means a comprehensive look into the world of speed reading, but hopefully it will give you some insight into what is possible with a bit of training.
Previous:
Improve your reading speed (part 1)
Tackling large computer books
Why learn to speed read?
Now that you know what can slow your reading speed down (see speed reading, part 1), what about ways to increase your reading speed?
There are many techniques and concepts that you can implement to increase your reading speed but the main goal, as a test taker, should be to become as efficient as you can when reading and studying for an exam. Comprehension and efficiency should always take priority over sheer speed.
Essentially, speed reading is achieved by learning specific reading skills - skills that need to be practiced routinely in order to see any worthwhile improvements. The key is repetition and training. You need to unlearn your old habits while learning new techniques. Chances are you've been reading for a couple of decades or so, so unlearning old habits takes a bit of doing.
Below are a few techniques that relate specifically to test takers, but remember that there are many books and other training materials on the subject that you should explore if you are interested in taking the concept further. If you intend to remain in the I.T. business for any length of time then chances are you'll be doing a lot of studying. Speed reading might well be worth the time and effort to learn.
- Know your goals. The first step to increasing your reading speed is to know what you want to get out of the text that you are reading. By knowing the exam objectives that you'll be tested on, you will be able to quickly move to sections of text that are relevant to your exam. Therefore you should read your exam objectives over and over until you are very familiar with them.
- Skim first, read later. By doing a preliminary reading of the book using a skimming method you can extract the key points of the text while being able to ignore or discard irrelevant sentences. A good example would be the 'Dummies Guide to ……'. If you’ve ever read one of those books you’ll know that indeed they do explain things very simply - great for the
new user to that particular topic. But they also tend to have a lot of ‘filler’ sentences that don’t really add to the educational content of the book. Effectively skimming
those books would enable you to extract the detailed information that you require, yet discarding the filler material.
Most test-takers will have come across so-called 'cram sheets'. These are extensive bullet-point breakdowns of the core information that you need to know for any particular topic. Well, there's a 'cram sheet' in every single computer book if you know how to discard the useless information and only extract the relevant bits you need. Skimming will help you do that.
- Don't mouth while you read. One of the key reasons people read slowly is because of the need to vocalize the words as they read. If you are such a person then you will only be reading slightly faster than you can talk, which is about 30 – 50% slower than you should be able to read if you were reading silently. If you are such a reader, then try to only vocalize every 3rd word or so as you try to train yourself to read silently. This is a hard habit to break, but you can train yourself out of it with practice and patience.
- Don’t turn back. According to some sources, a reader will, on average, re-read a word, a sentence, or a paragraph about 10-20 times per page. But by reading a text faster you can easier eliminate the need to re-read passages. You’ll often find that should you miss the context of a particular sentence, rather than having to re-read the sentence, you can get a better feel for the context of that sentence by continuing to read and not going back to re-visit the text. Re-reading is a habit, and you can train yourself out of it. Use a pointer of some description, like your finger or the tip of a pen or pencil, to move along the text as you read. This will help you to acknowledge the amount of times that you have to stop and re-read a section of the text. Slowly train yourself to ignore the need to go back and re-read a section.
- Bigger bites. Train your eyes to take in more than one word at a time. Learn to read in blocks of words, not individual words. By being able to focus on more than one word you are able to learn in phrases rather than individual words. In time, you’ll be able to pick out key words and ideas from blocks of words at a glance, thus increasing your reading speed even further. This is something that you’ll have to practice and make a conscious effort to do.
You may be surprised just how much more effective your reading can become by just practicing these simple techniques. It’s probably best to practice these techniques away from your study routine as you’ll probably be focusing more on the reading exercises than the computer certification that you’re trying to study for. Once you’re comfortable with your new method of reading, introduce it to your study regime. If you wish to develop your skills further then there are plenty of books that cover the subject in much more detail. This is by no means a comprehensive look into the world of speed reading, but hopefully it will give you some insight into what is possible with a bit of training.
Previous:
Improve your reading speed (part 1)
Tackling large computer books
Why learn to speed read?
