Top Four Tips to Help You Read Faster

So, you’ve set a lofty goal to read a set number of books at the end of a certain period. It could be that you have an upcoming exam or a project that you need to read faster for if you hope to complete reading all the materials you need. Perhaps, you’re simply bored of having the reading slower pace of a snail on a 100m race.

Regardless of what your motivation is, reading faster can help you achieve several things. Among others, you’ll be able to acquire knowledge in record time. This would help you meet stiff deadlines. Alongside that, you’ll get the opportunity to do as much “pleasure reading” as you truly want rather than dragging a book along for several weeks until you lose the motivation to finish it.

How exactly can you read faster? Is it even possible to do it while retaining your understanding of the text?

Well, dear friend, yes it is possible and in this piece, we’ll walk you through four important tips to help you get this done.

1. Use a marker along the way

Very often, when some people read, their attention tends to trail off. If you belong to this class of people, you’ll realize that you might not even be getting distracted by external factors. Your mind could simply be wandering on its own and taking your eyes along with it. However, this would leave you reading the same paragraph over and over again.

This simple action slows down your reading significantly. So much so that you could go several minutes or even hours without learning half as much as you should. Using a marker would help you get past this problem. A marker in this context isn’t a literal writing material, even though it could be. But, in this case, it means using your fingers to trace each line and having your eyes follow it. That way, even if your mind gets distracted and your eyes look away, you can go right back to where you stopped by looking at where your hand is.

See Also: Essential Skills for Reading Comprehension

2. Improve your vocabulary

Unless you’re a human dictionary or an encyclopedia, you’ll definitely come across words you don’t know in a book. That’s perfectly normal. However, the more words you’re unfamiliar with in the average book, the slower you’ll get.

Here’s how it works. First, you’ll see a word you’re not sure of. Then, you’ll either try to look it up or figure out its meaning based on the book’s context. Either way, you’d have slowed down significantly. Once you’ve gotten past that hurdle, you’ll probably come across a new word and repeat the process.

On and on it goes until you’re unable to complete simple chapters in record time. However, when you improve your vocabulary, you can avoid this problem because you wouldn’t have to stop to check out meanings so often.

3. Use a timer 

When reading, create a set time for you to start and stop. This will help you move faster. Now, you shouldn’t let yourself get so desperate to read the text that you forgo comprehension. That would be a waste of time, no matter how quickly you finish reading. Instead, while you read, make an effort to ensure that you still understand what you’re reading.

4. Read 

Our final tip would be pretty short and you’ll see why. The only way to get better at doing something is by doing it. You don’t get better at cooking by buying food from restaurants. You don’t get better at driving by walking to work everyday. In the same vein, you don’t get better at reading faster by staying away from books. So, to read faster, read more.