BARRIERS TO SPEED READING

• Subvocalizing. Repeating what you read in your head (reading with your ears).

If you hear yourself reading, read faster.

• Vocalizing. If your lips move as you read you are vokalizing your text. As long as you read vocalising, you will only be able to read as fast as you can speak.

Let the texts pass into the mind directly from the eye, skipping the mouth and ear.

• Eye rests. As your eyes read across a line they stop periodically and dwell on a word. This also slows down your progress.

Try to reduce your eye rests to 3-4 per line, less as you get better. Keep the eye moving smoothly line after line.

• Back-skipping. Your eyes jump back the previous words or sentences to make sure you have understood them. As a result, you forget what you have just read; your understanding decreases because you are reading something out of context.

Break with the back-skipping habit: use your finger or a stick; it leads you forward at a speedy pace, keeps you on focus and avoids eye rests or back-skipping.

• Word for word reading. Meaning is contained not so much in individual words as in collections of words conveying broader or more specific ideas.

Break the flow of words into chunks.