Reading is an art form. It allows us to break out of the mundane and experience something new and exciting. However, reading is also an important human ability that is often overlooked in today’s fast-paced world. With information at our fingertips, we have become accustomed to scrolling through articles and surfing the web, without ever really immersing ourselves in a book. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, around 26% of adults in America didn’t pick up a book at all in 2016. This may be due to the belief that reading is too time-consuming, but what if we told you there was a way to read six times more books, without sacrificing comprehension? Welcome to the world of speed reading.

Speed reading has been around for a long time and is an excellent tool for those who want to get more out of their reading, without spending hours on end reading a single book. A proficient speed reader can read around 1,500 words per minute, which is five times more than the average adult reader. This means that a speed reader can breeze through a book in approximately 50 minutes that would take the average adult reader over five hours to finish. With this speed, a speed reader could potentially read over 365 books in a year. The average adult, on the other hand, would only finish approximately 66 books in the same time frame. So, how do you become a proficient speed reader?

The following techniques can help you achieve faster and more effective reading:

1. Start with the table of contents. The table of contents is the roadmap through a book. It outlines the main ideas and helps you stay focused on the subject you want to understand. Skipping the table of contents can lead to losing focus or wasting time wondering about structural questions that could be answered with a quick look at the front matter. If you need to know specific information from the book, the table of contents can tell you which chapters are relevant, allowing you to skip over parts that aren’t pertinent to your research.

2. Always read with an intention. While reading, keep a question in the back of your mind. Asking, “What is the author trying to tell me?” is a great way to frame your thoughts. Your brain will work to figure out the answer to this question as you read. When you read with a purpose in mind, you’ll be able to process relevant information and filter out extraneous material.

3. Identify the author’s point of view and read just enough references to understand. Books generally contain references to other academic works to support their standpoint. By taking a look at what the author chooses to cite, you can learn a bit more about how he or she will formulate their key points. This information can guide your thinking as you speed read. Glancing at the references doesn’t mean that you need to stop to read through every note or source. References that merely reaffirm what the author says will quickly become monotonous to read. After you have enough information to make sense of the material, you won’t gain anything extra by continuing to consume the same information.

4. Never read aloud (or in your head). Reading aloud is great for developing fluency in emerging readers, but it is a surefire way to slow you down. When we read passages out loud, our brain has to work a bit harder than when we read silently. When we read aloud, our brain not only sees the words on the page but also goes through the trouble of hearing the words and producing speech. We really don’t need to vocalize what we are reading to understand it. The extra steps can slow us down significantly. By minimizing sub-vocalization and reading aloud, you can eliminate the extra step of having to read and comprehend speech in Wernicke’s Area and then vocalize it in Broca’s Area.

Speed reading is like enjoying the garden view instead of focusing on every single petal. When we read at a leisurely pace, it gives us a chance to appreciate words in a different way. Think of reading line by line like stopping to appreciate a beautiful flower garden with a magnifying glass or spending thirty minutes examining a piece of artwork three inches in front of your face. You might think that you need to look that closely, and you may see some incredible things, but you’re missing the totality of the scene. Speed reading gives you the opportunity to look at the big picture so that you can see how many kinds of flowers there are or how different brush strokes combine to make a cohesive image. When you look at the big picture, you can extract more meaning from what you see.

In conclusion, speed reading is a valuable tool that can help you read more books in less time. By following the techniques mentioned above, you can become a proficient speed reader and get more out of your reading. Remember that reading is a profound human ability that can enhance our lives in many ways. It builds empathy, decreases anxiety, and broadens our perspectives. Don’t overlook the power of reading; embrace it, and start speed reading your way through an extensive library of books!