My whole life, I thought that speed reading was impossible.  I dismissed anyone’s claim that they could read extremely fast, assuming that if they were reading that quickly they had to  sacrifice their comprehension of the material.  But when I started working through the book Breakthrough Rapid Reading.

I was a slow reader, but after one week I am already working my way to being an above average reader.

The Benefits of Reading Fast

Let’s compare someone who reads at the average college level and someone that can speed read.  The average college reading speed is 240-350 words per minute; we will assume 300. And a speed reader can reach speeds up to 2,000 words per minute; we will take a conservative speed of 1,000 words per minute.

Assuming that these two readers spend 2 hours a day reading for 300 days of the year, and assume that they are reading 400 page books.  After doing some number crunching, you discover the college level reader can read 77 books in a year, but in the same amount of time the speed reader would have read 257 books.

Now taking the assumption that reading gives you knowledge, you can see that the speed reader will have an advantage in life.  Even if you are not worried about acquiring more knowledge than other people, you can at least acquire the same amount of knowledge in a lot less time.

Note this scenario is a bit extreme, but it gets the point across.

My Reading Improvement

I have had the book for a week.  I usually wouldn’t write a review so quickly, but I am just absolutely amazed. I’m surprised of how much 1 week of speed reading practice has helped.  Before I tell you how much I have improved I will tell you where I started at in each of the three areas of reading.

Comprehension - This is how well you understand the material you are reading, and I would put myself at above average.  I usually have a very clear understanding of what I read.  And even though my reading speeds are increasing my ability to comprehend has not decreased, which disproves my previous misconception.

Retention - This is how well you remember what you read.  While I have an excellent ability to remember the concepts of the material, I am not that great at remembering names, new vocabulary and dates.   The book hasn’t helped with this much; however, it could be hard for me to tell the difference. (Note I am not even half way done with the book.)

Speed - This is where the book really helps you out.  I will admit that I was a slow reader. I was on the line of being a below average and an average reader, about 180 words per minute.  But after one week, I am passing the average college reader speed and going into the above average region, at 355 words per minute (I tested my speed right before writing this post).

Practice

This is not like a get rich scheme. You will not become a speed reader just by reading this book. It requires practice! There are reading drills and you must do them.  The book claims that if you drill 40 minutes a day for six weeks you will be reading approximately 800-1200 words per minute.  (The type of reading material will determine your maximum limit.)

Test Your Self – Discover your reading speed

Go ahead and test yourself.  Find a book, preferably nonfiction. And follow these steps.

1. Go here for an online stop watch.
2. Set it to count down for 3:00 minutes.  (Make sure you turn up your speakers.)
3. Find a starting point in your book.  A section that you have not read.
4. Start the count down and begin reading.  Read like you always do.  Don’t try to rush and act like you can read faster than you really can.  (Read a section that does not have graphs or odd typing.)
5. When the timer goes off make a mark where you stopped.
6. Now, count how many words are in 3 lines, then divide that number by 3 to determine the average words per line.
7. Count up the number of lines you read.  If it is less than half of a line don’t count it, and if it is more than half of a line count it.
8. Multiply the number of lines by the number of words in each line.  Then divide by 3 to get your words per minute.

Here’s the formula:  (words per line) x (lines read)/(minutes read[3])

How did you do?  Can you read faster than I can? Even if you are a naturally fast reader and are reading above 500 words per minute, there is still room for improvement.

If you are interested in learning how to speed read I highly suggest you purchase Breakthrough Rapid Reading by Peter Kump.  The book is only $11 at Amazon.  I really think speed reading can be life changing for anyone interested in a professional career.