What are some tips to reading faster or speed reading?

Answer 1

Try and set a time limit for yourself so you have a goal to achieve. It will give you something to aim for, instead of trying to go really fast. Have a friend time you, and try and go over a section that you are trying to read faster. Reading more often also helps.

Another answer:

Why is it so easy to read the road while driving at 70 miles per hour, while it is far more difficult to read text at only 200 wpm? Think about it. Reading the road in a car should be far more difficult since we read in four directions: front, back, left, and right. A book sits in front of you in one direction. Yet in just a few days, most of us only remember about 10% of what we read, but while driving we get so bored we turn on the radio and talk to friends. Understanding the difference between these two types of reading will unlock your child's reading speed.

The difference between reading the road and reading a book is simple. While driving in a car your brain processes all the data as a movie. The result is information that is easy to process. Reading text is quite different. During reading there seems to be an imaginary person in back of your head that reads aloud: one….word….at….a….time. This imaginary voice creates the bottleneck that slows down your reading. The solution is simple, start viewing a movie of the text while reading-just like you did while reading the road during driving.

How can you begin seeing more while reading? Instinctively you already have started to master this skill, but not quite enough to increase your reading speed. When you first learn to read, you read letters. The dog is viewed by your brain as the letters:

"d o g." As your reading skill progresses you begin to see these individual letters as a single word. "Hot" is another word comprised of only three letters. However, placing the word hot in front of the word dog changes the meaning of both words. You don't see hot dog as a dog that is hot. Instead you recognize a popular food. Your brain has chunked these two separate words into one unit of meaning.

Look at this grouping of words: United States of America. Your brain doesn't see four words; instead, it sees one grouping that you recognize as our country. By learning to speed read your brain quickly adjusts to chunking large groupings of individual words into easy to understand units of meaning. I have additional articles and videos on my blog that will help you understand the basics of speed reading.

Answer 2

Read one passage from Shakespeare every day. Once you finish, go back to normal books. You will be amazed at how fast you will be able to read!