Enhance Your Reading: Speed Up and Comprehend More

The Limitations of Subvocalization

When you read, do you notice an inner voice that follows the words as your eyes move across the page or screen? This inner voice, known as 'subvocalization', often limits our reading speed to that of normal speech, approximately 300 words per minute (w.p.m). However, our minds are capable of processing information much faster than that. Subvocalization can hold back our minds and often leads to comprehension problems due to the mismatch between reading speed and thinking speed.

Breaking the Habit of Subvocalization

To break the habit of subvocalization, try this exercise: As you read, silently count from one to ten or repeat the sound 'Eee'. This exercise will make you aware that you're processing words in an area called 'thought stream' that you experience in the top of your head. Thought stream moves much faster than subvocalization, and as your reading speed catches up with your thinking speed, reading becomes less tiring and comprehension improves.

Speeding Up Eye Movements

The next step to efficient reading is speeding up your eye movements. Your eyes move across the written page in a series of quick jumps, with each stop, known as a 'fixation', lasting a fraction of a second. The untrained eye takes about a quarter of a second at each fixation, taking in 2 or 3 words per fixation. By speeding up your eye movements, you'll learn to make fewer fixations per line and take in more words per fixation.

Exercise to Speed Up Eye Movements

Try this exercise: If you use a glass 'anti-glare' screen, draw two vertical lines in felt-tip, 5 cms apart, over the middle of the text you are reading. Now move your eyes in a 'Z' pattern down this central strip, at a speed slightly faster than is comfortable. This forces your mind to 'fill in the gaps', engaging more of your mind and leading to greater comprehension and increased memory of what was read.

The Benefits of Speed Reading

Speed reading is not just about reading faster; it also allows you to access much more of the brain, thereby increasing your comprehension and creativity. It takes advantage of the fact that much of written English is highly redundant; a lot of words can be skipped without any loss of meaning. When your eyes move down a central strip of the text, you also engage much more of your peripheral vision, bringing the right hemisphere of the brain into the reading process.

For an excellent, free, speed-reading course, visit The Speed Reading Course. Here are some more free speed-reading sites:

• The Study Hall Free Speed Reading Programs
• Road To Reading Home
• University of Texas Speed Reading
• Speed Reading Links
• ReadRace: Free Java application for speed reading
• WannaLearn.com: Personal Enrichment : Speed Reading