The Advantages Of Speed Reading
What have you been reading lately? In a gathering, you can soon tell who the broad-spectrum readers are, since frequent readers are often quick thinkers and good public speakers too. They quickly win the adulation, respect, and fellowship of others. After all, reading expands the mind and many people see it as one of the most satisfying pleasures known to mankind, being a combination, as it is, of mental agility and physical relaxation well above the level offered by television or the cinema.
Reading is mostly a mental activity, since 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 pleasure that the main characters in the story are experiencing as the plot unfolds; or you contemplate the various arguments and ideas introduced by the author in that self-help book you are holding.
Learning how to read properly helps you to develop an extensive knowledge of words through reading different styles 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 good idea of what the sentence is trying to convey.
The act of reading makes you more aware and more interested in new words. Some readers even develop ‘the dictionary habit’, which means that whenever they come across a new word, they attempt to work out what it possibly means from the context. If they cannot do this, they refer to a 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 teaches you to have an active and open mind. Merely grasping the writers idea is not enough, you have to make a positive response to what you read. Be an active, not a passive, reader. 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 consider the ideas that you read. A practical part of active reading is the drawing of conclusions.
Now let me mention the phenomenon of 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, comprehend and remember all those books and articles. You would surely become well-read in your subject much more rapidly than others. Just think how that could help you at work, in school or in college …
Now, let me show you the four primary rules for better reading and better comprehension:
1) Try to read more and more every month. Remember the saying that practice makes perfect. 2) Develop the habit of reading for main ideas, ie look for the subject and predicate – the main ideas 3) Learn to read with focus and concentration. Think of what you are reading. Good readers read with understanding. 4) Learn to budget your time. Experiment with your reading time. Try purposely to read faster. Give yourself a time limit for a specific text 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.
Are you interested in speed reading for yourself or a dear one? If so, please visit our website called Speed Reading.
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