You might have heard that if you learn to speed read you can take in information considerably more quickly than usual, thereby enhancing your skills as well as upping your value as an employee.

While the ability to read faster may be beneficial for some, for others it is more a matter of improving comprehension of what they have read as well as being able to retain the information they have received. A high-quality speed reading program can do both, and consequently amp up both your personal and professional life.

On average, a person will read at the rate of about two words per second with typical understanding. For normal reading needs this may well be enough, however a basic speed reading course can help increase the average reading speed to four (possibly six) words per second with the same comprehension level.

However, some people have very specific reading needs and may desire to increase their reading speed to ten or more words per second with higher than average comprehension. A comprehensive speed reading program with lots of practice and testing can help them reach their objective.

Most speed reading courses are designed to help readers decide on the fly what words are worth reading and which ones are not. Being able to look at a word without having to concentrate on each and every letter to visualize the word is already practiced by most readers, but a speed reading course can help them eliminate more words in a sentence, increasing their rate of reading.

Improve Speed, But Don’t Lose Comprehension

Many people who first begin to learn to speed read often face the challenge of sub-vocalization. This is the tendency to mentally sound out each word while they read. Speed reading teaches the skill of not sub-vocalizing while you read, instead teaching you to only focus on the words that have meaning to the overall context. You will become skilled at intentional reading and will therefore increase understanding at the same time as speed.

There are different ways of teaching and learning speed reading. One method might work better for some students than another. Fundamentally, speed reading aims to train the brain to recognize only relevant words without sounding them in one’s head. If you are not happy with your progress, look for different speed reading software or a program that teaches these skills in ways that work best for you.

However, similar to physical tasks, practice in speed reading will increase your reading speed as time goes on.

No matter what your reading and comprehension abilities are, you can learn to read faster with a well designed speed reading program. As well, your comprehension abilities are maintained, and sometimes they even get better.

In a speed reading course participants are taught to scan through the material quickly. They learn how to skip over the parts they don’t need and focus on just the meaningful information. The idea is to be able to gather the essence of the material through reading entire sentences or phrases as a block, instead of just individual words.

An example of particularly difficult reading material is a technical manual containing endless pages of detailed information. But when you learn to speed read you can manage it more quickly and also remember the content more completely. It’s very important that they remember everything they need to in order to avoid having to re-read the text.

When children first learn to read, they read a word and pronounce it out loud to be sure they recognize it. They then do the same with each word that follows. This methodical and slow moving process of reading is retained as time goes by. But a speed reading program can retrain the brain to learn a better, faster way to read.

The first speed reading program was developed and introduced in Australia by Evelyn Wood in 1958. Since then, learning to read faster has become extremely popular, especially when it comes to reading informational text.

There are many different techniques available in a speed reading program. All of these have been developed to help people improve their reading speed. Some naysayers, however, charge that some of these programs increase reading speed at the expense of comprehension. Many participants in speed reading competitions can get through a thousand hours and more in an hour. But their comprehension rate is only around 50%.

There are those who insist that this is a real problem with some of the speed reading programs available. They measure their success based solely on speed instead of comprehension and retention. These are also quite important, in particular with regards to technical information.

If you’re looking to find a good speed reading program, make sure it promises to help your understanding and ability to retain the material and not just teach you to read faster. By utilizing these skills, you’ll be able to get what you need from any type of reading material.