Teaching Speed Reading Skills

There are many books, courses and programswould bring. The reader is utilizing his previous
from which you can learn how to speed read.knowledge of the format of the text, and
Whenever you pick up a book, course orsubject, and is looking forward to reading what he
software on "Learning How to Speed Read" orpredicts will be in the book.
"Speed Reading Training", you will come acrossPredicting
such terms; skimming, scanning, previewing,Prediction in reading means guessing about the
predicting, anticipation, silent reading, reading intext in a global level or at an overall level. The
chunks, and guessing the meanings of unfamiliardifference between the anticipation and prediction
words. Training with these can help you inis that prediction is on a higher level - you may
acquiring a very effective compromise betweenanticipate that the conclusion will be coming up,
fluency and accuracy in reading. Let's see whatand you may predict that after that, a certain
these terms mean...topic will be covered. Prediction is global, at the
Skimmingentire book level, while prediction is local, or at a
This is one of the first techniques you will learn tosentence level. This technique is also very useful
use when you begin your training. Skimmingwhen you want to learn how to speed read
means reading a text quickly, just in order to getbecause it can increase your reading speed by
the "gist" of the text. Skimming is a useful readingseveral words per minute if you are ready for
technique especially in extensive reading. Sowhat you're about to read.
skimming enables us to extract the most relevantGuessing the meaning of unfamiliar words
nouns, adjectives, and statistics from the text, soIf you pay enough attention to the context, it is
we know what we're getting into before wealmost always possible to accurately guess the
really read the text.meaning of an unfamiliar word. Learning how to
Scanningproperly guess the meaning of a word is really
This means reading the text quickly in order touseful when you need to learn how to speed
look for specific piece of information. You mayread.
recognize this skill as very useful in your daily lifeReading in chunks
when looking for a telephone number in a phoneIn speed reading training this technique once again
directory or searching for the meaning of someenables us to avoid unnecessary concern; in this
unfamiliar word in a dictionary. Instead of readingcase, it's about individual letters and word. If you
through every word in the vicinity of the wordpay too much unnecessary attention to the
you're searching for, you just scan through untilindividual pieces of a phrase, instead of the phrase
you find the actual word you're looking for. This isas a whole, your reading speed will be severely
useful in speed reading because often you willlimited.
want to find the most relevant piece ofReading in Silence
information first, before you actually read the restAs we know, reading is a cognitive activity. The
of the article.imagination of a reader is playing an active role all
Previewingthe time, where he is thinking, rethinking,
Previewing is another useful technique in learningfantasizing, or referring back. Although it is
how to speed read. This gives us the firstpossible to read under just about any
impression about a book. We can get a fairlycircumstances, it is always best to read in an
good preview of the book by looking at the title,environment as silent as possible. Reading is best
the blurb on back cover, reviews, the forewordas a private activity. It is very useful technique in
or preface, the contents page, the index etc...speed reading training when you need to read
Anticipationlarge amounts of texts.
This is a kind of guessing game in speed readingNone of these techniques alone qualify as speed
training. Anticipation means the reader isreading; it's only when you combine them all that
constantly anticipating what the next line or pageyou can learn how to speed read.