This summer, I took it upon myself to learn the not-so-simple art of speed reading. I went into this with wide eyes and high hopes. Little did I know just how daunting the task truly was. Harry Potter seemed like a good choice for this task due to the fact that the books are relatively easy to read, I already know the story, and it’s a decently long series that will give me lots of practice. I went to my go-to how-to website, WikiHow to learn the basics before getting started.
Step 1: Stop talking to yourself.
I am 100% guilty of this. Every time I’m reading in my head, I read every single word as if I were reading the book outloud. I already knew this was something that was really slowing me down. So here I was, trying to learn ways to break that habit!
Step 2: Cover words you’ve already read.
It didn’t occur to me just how much time I spent re-reading things before I tried this out. I just followed my reading with an index card, covering up what I had already read. Sure, I didn’t get ~everything~ I was reading, but this part was easy enough.
Step 3: Understand eye movements.
This is where things really started to get technical. There’s actually a lot of science that goes into this which you can research in your free time (what fun!) but basically the goal here is to make as few eye movements per line as you can.
Step 4: Train your eyes to make fewer movements.
Normally when we read, our eye movements are very jerky and stop on some words longer than others and it just doesn’t flow very well. With fewer movements, you’re wasting less time. This was the hardest part for me. I still can’t really do it all that well.
Step 5: Set a pace faster than you can understand.
This part was also quite the struggle. This part also really messes with your comprehension of whatever it is that you’re reading. The point is that you can read faster than you can understand so read first, understand later. The idea is that your mind will catch up with your eyes later. Idk about that though. Sounds a little sketchy.
So here’s how things went fo me on my personal journey. I will admit that I learned how to speed read. But here’s the thing: it take so much concentration that if I zone out for even a second, an entire page of text is lost upon me and I’m forced to go back and read it again, which completely defeats the point of speed reading! It is also extremely difficult to adjust to the pace. I get that it’s supposed to be uncomfortably fast, but it just feels so unnatural. To make a long story short, I use it when I have to, but that’s rarely. It just isn’t worth it to me. And don’t even get me started with skimming!
Happy Speed Reading!!!