Speed Reading
Marion Jones | March 5, 2010What have you been reading lately? In a gathering, you can soon tell who the frequent readers are, since wide readers often think and speak well too. They win the admiration, respect, and fellowship of others. After all, reading expands the mind and many people consider it one of the most satisfying pleasures known to mankind, combining, as it does, mental agility and physical relaxation way above the scale offered by television.
The act of reading is primarily a mental activity. After all, you read with your mind and use your imagination to paint the setting of the action thriller you are reading. You use your mind to imagine the pain that the main characters are experiencing as the story unfolds; or you bring into play the different arguments and ideas brought up by the author in that self-help book you are studying.
Reading effectively helps you to develop a wide range of vocabulary through reading different types of books. A skillful reader recognizes a wide range of vocabulary. The reader may not understand exactly what every word means, but he/she will have a general idea of what the sentence is trying to say.
The act of reading makes you more aware and more curious about hitherto unknown words. Some readers even like to employ ‘the dictionary habit’, which means that every time they find a new word, they attempt to work out what it means in the context. If they are stumped, they refer to the dictionary.
Similarly, reading develops intellectual curiosity by exposing the reader to a variety of subjects. He/she learns to read by reading books of increasing difficulty and variety. Just as in other kinds of education, he/she is learning by actually doing and while he/she is reading he/she is automatically learning about the subject matter of the book too – a free by-product!
Reading trains you to have an active and open mind. Merely understanding the writers idea is not really good enough, you have to have a reply to what you read. Be an active, not a passive, reader. Try to develop the habit of drawing your own conclusions, the habit of active thinking, of agreeing or disagreeing with the writer. Always keep your mind open; understand and weigh the ideas that you read. A practical part of active reading is the development of one’s own conclusions.
Now let me tell you to the phenomenon called speed reading. All of the above applies between three and ten times over, because speed readers can read that much faster than the average reader! Consider that! – Being able to read, understand and remember all those books. You would certainly become well-read in your field far more quickly than others. Just think how that would help you at work or in school or university …
Allow me to share four basic rules for effective reading and better comprehension:
1) Try to read more and more every month. Remember that practice makes perfect. 2) Learn the habit of reading the main ideas, ie look for the subject and predicate – the principal ideas 3) Learn to read with focus and concentration. Good readers read with understanding. 4) Learn to budget your time. Experiment with your reading time. Try to read faster. Give yourself a time limit for the specific book that you are reading.
Reading is a wonderfully stimulating mental activity. It expands your reality and capability. You have so much to gain in discovering the joys of reading. So, go ahead and take down a book right now.
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