The second of two articles on speed reading by Adam Harley:
Speed reading is an essential skill when you need to read large information quickly. Speed of reading means how many words you read in a minute. Different people have different speed of reading which can be improved by using different techniques and methods. It is analyzed that nearly 300 words can be read accurately in a minute by an average person. Those people who claim that they can read 10,000 or more words use skimming and scanning techniques. However good speed in reading is considered in between 500 to 700 words per minute but you can improve it further with the help of some programs, courses and exercises. Good command on word recognition and vocabulary play an important role to improve speed of reading. Some other abilities that can help you to improve reading speed are eye movement, large blocks of words, spent less time in reading fixation and always try to move forward. If a person has good reading speed then he can learn and understand fast as compare to poor readers.
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There are many types of reading materials like newspapers, notices, essays, letters and research papers etc. Every kind of material demands different speed reading due to its nature and importance. When you read a document you should know well what information you want to extract from it because if you want outline or summary then you don’t need to read it thoroughly. You need to search your required information from the notice and your related news from the newspapers but while reading a research paper you need to read it thoroughly. Writing style and size of the text also affects the reading speed. If the size of writing or style is not easy to read then your speed of reading will be decreased and there are chances of mistakes. Then it depends on the way you read it, you read aloud or silent.
There are many self paced methods as well as courses, software programs that you can use to speed up your reading skill. You can use self paced methods easily without delay and cost. Different institutes offer different courses to improve your reading skill; software and other programs help you to correct your pronunciation, understanding idea of the writing, speed and recognition.
People read for two different purposes; information and pleasure. If you read fast then you can get knowledge, information and appreciation quickly. You can save time by speed reading because sometimes you read something which is not very interesting and it becomes difficult to swallow it by reading thoroughly so you use skimming technique and increase your reading speed just to get main idea or theme. When you are able to read in speed then you can write and recognize words speedily.
Another very important fact which contributes in speed reading is the language in which you want to increase your reading speed. If it is your mother tongue then it becomes easy to read speedily but if it is the second or foreign language then you can face some problems but with the help of useful courses and software programs you can improve it. It is seen that people who are good at reading have advantage and are more effective than poor readers.
About the Author
If you need any more tips, check out the Speed Reading Manual. It’s written in much better English than mine, and contains much more useful tips as well! Download the Speed Reading Manual today: http://www.speedreadingisreal.com/ I highly recommend it.
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