being able to read fast is one of the most important skills you need at university because
the number of textbooks you're expected to read depending on what you're studying can be huge
and i remember my first semester when i was in my first year at university the module i was studying
was world economics and the lecturer gave us a long reading list and i thought that's fine i
can read through all the books in that list not a problem but as i began to buy the books i started
to realize that each book was 300 400 500 pages thick and so it quickly dawned on me there's no
way i'm going to be able to read through all of these in the space of a few weeks and so i talk
about study efficiently on this channel quite a lot so if you have two students exactly the same
abilities same subject same everything however one student is trained to study extremely efficiently
and they both study for one hour the student that is trained to study efficiently will be able
to learn considerably more than the student that isn't trained and so this is a huge part of it the
average speed the student reads is about 200 to 250 words per minute this is usually the speed of
an untrained person however this figure can quite easily rise to 400 words per minute by taking
a few simple steps which i'll go over now and a super quick announcement the transform your grades
in 30 days course is now live if you're still struggling with procrastination or maybe you're
struggling to implement what i'm teaching you on this channel into your studying or maybe you need
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running a 50 discount promotional launch offer which will be ending very very shortly so please
don't procrastinate in fixing your procrastination the links down below click it and i look forward
to working with you very shortly now back to seven advanced tips on how to increase your
reading speed method one minimize subvocalization now sub-vocalization is a very common habit that
most of us do while we're reading but often we don't even realize it and i'll be honest i'm
guilty of it sometimes too and it involves saying words in your head while reading and it's one of
the main reasons why people read slowly and have trouble improving their reading speed another way
of putting it which sounds potentially concerning is hearing voices in your head not like voices
telling you to do bad things but it's just an internal monologue like a habit of repeating what
you read in your head and it's a common practice we did at school it's how we learn to read so it
makes sense why we do that and five or six years ago i used to sub-vocalize a lot and pretty much
everything i read i would be speaking it quietly in my head and i thought that's how everyone read
right but at the same time it would take me so long to read just an average sized book
it wasn't until i started to consciously make an effort to minimize and eventually completely stop
sub-vocalization then my reading speed sped up significantly and the issue with subvocalization
is that we can only really read as fast as we can talk because we're effectively talking to
ourselves and the average reading speed is 200 to 250 words per minute and the average talking
speed is exactly the same because most people say words in the head while reading they tend to read
it around the same rate as they talk and you can test this out for yourself if you like try reading
for one minute normally and then try reading out loud for one minute if you're like most people
your reading speed and talking speed will be very similar so minimizing subvocalization will mean
consciously trying to stop the internal voices slowing down your reading and focus instead on
extracting ideas and absorbing information and processing the details of what you're reading
you will focus less on what the words say and more what the words represent however it is easier said
than done it takes a lot of practice but the next few points will not only help you read quicker but
also help minimize some vocalization method two read with a pointer interestingly bernard wesler
author of the book speed reading for professionals believes that reading with a pointer or reading a
book with your finger is so effective because it calls upon your survival instincts to follow a
moving object with your field of vision if you've ever played a team sport like football or cricket
you know that you have to keep your eyes on many things at once for example where the ball is
where the opposing team players are where your own team mates are where the goal line is where
the boundaries are you have to keep an eye on and track many things at once and what's crazy is you
do it automatically you just look across the field and automatically you start collecting information
and you can use your eyes to abstract so much information at once from different sources yet
when it comes to reading some of us find it difficult to read more than one word at a time
again i was guilty of this but it can be done it is possible that while you're reading
one word you're also reading the next word and even the word after that and as such you're not
just reading one word but you're reading three or even as many as six words at once and wesler
stated in just 10 minutes of practice your pacing becomes smooth and comfortable your learning speed
will double in 7 days and triple in 21 days and wesler advises the best way to learn to do this
is by using a pen laser or pointer of some kind even your finger to underline each sentence as you
read your peripheral vision will pick up six words on either side of the pointer allowing you to move
through a sentence up to six times faster than reading each word the pointer helps you create
a steady pace and focuses your attention on the page and i actually do a lot of my reading on
an app called blinkist i've really been focusing hard the last few months and weeks on efficiency
how can i save more time and how can i get more done in my 24 hours and before if it took me eight
hours to read a book blinkist is basically an app that summarizes non-fiction books into short
15-minute summaries and they're even 15-minute audio book versions too so essentially you can be
taught the key insights of a non-fiction book in just 15 minutes rather than having to spend eight
hours reading it and i've been using the blinky stack for a good maybe three or four months now
almost every single day and i can highly recommend it just for purely the number of hours that it has
saved me over the few months that i've been using it there's a link in the description if you'd like
to check it out method three read in chunks and i appreciate that using a pointer may not
be possible you may be reading on a kindle or an ipad which means touching the screen
moves the text you could be reading off a lecture slide or perhaps it's simply not working for you
i also know some people that say it feels kind of babyish to use your finger to help you read
and feel self-conscious about it but in any case an alternative is called chunking or reading in
chunks if you take a sentence and focus on the first word chances are you can see the next word
maybe even the word after that until eventually it gets a bit blurry and this is because the human
eye has a small dimple called the fovea and in that one spot vision is clearest when you divide
a sentence into chunks of three or four words your eyes see the center of the chunk most clearly but
can still distinguish the surrounding words think of reading a sentence in three or four chunks
instead of reading every word individually and you can kind of see how much faster
you would get through the material it will take some practice but the idea mainly is you keep your
eyes moving rather than a stop start approach to reading keep your eyes moving taking in two words
at once to begin with then three words and it will improve your reading speed significantly method
four listening to music now listening to music will not only help you minimize subvocalization
but listening to music may also help you concentrate better in general so by giving our
mind something else to focus on while reading it limits the capacity to read the words out
loud in your head but music in general has that ability to keep us focused and determined music
also eliminates outside distractions like other people's conversations for example however keep
in mind that not all types of music are going to help you concentrate you want to avoid listening
to music with lyrics anything with a strong beat or distracts you because it is going to
throw you off your concentration so for example i really like classical music and i find that works
really well but also like soundtracks from movies movies like lord of the rings that are really
epic dramatic motivational and i can get really fired up and sometimes it works but sometimes
all i want to do is watch a lot of the rings or abandon my studies altogether to join the fight
for middle earth and in the very beginning i just listened to my favorite music but the issue here
is that some songs particularly older songs would bring back old memories or feelings maybe it was a
song from my childhood for example and this would be distracting so really what i needed is music
that i only associate with studying so what worked for me ironically enough was study motivation
music videos on youtube because it was the first time that i heard them i only ever listened to
them while studying i came to associate this music with studying and it helped me keep my focus and i
found that while i was reading listening to music helped avoid the sub-vocalization and as such i
would read much faster method five eliminates distractions now i'm not going to go too deeply
on this topic because overcoming procrastination is a frequent talking point on this channel
but by eliminating distractions at this source you'll stay focused on your reading but what
i've not talked about on this channel is what is called the compound effect and the compound effect
is the title of a book written by darren hardy and he defines it as the strategy of reaping
huge rewards from small seemingly insignificant actions in the case of reading the more you read
the quicker and better you get and that will probably come at no surprise to you which is
why i've not wasted time going through it but the same goes for eliminating distractions if
you get in the habit of eliminating distractions while you study it will help you concentrate
better and over time you will gradually get better and better to the point it becomes
second nature you won't have to consciously make an effort to eliminate distractions you will just
do it and this will greatly improve your speed of reading as you won't be distracted and let's
quick fire some practical suggestions turn off your phone turn on the do not disturb mode or
put it on silent or perhaps just put it away out of grasp ideally using your laptop for music if
you can close social media tabs and turn off any instant notifications you may get so for example
when i get a message on facebook i get a prompt on my laptop screen but you can turn that off quite
easily in the settings find the right environment for you to read sitting with a group of friends
may not be the best place or in front of the telly i like reading in a library or a coffee shop i
like being surrounded by people and ambient noise rather than dead silence but whatever works with
you if you're studying something like chemistry or economics something really intensive you may
need a quieter environment than if you are reading a novel for a literature course be prepared make
sure you have your water bottle filled up you have your snacks your books your laptop charger
everything you need to avoid distractions or things that are going to stop you doing what
you're doing once you start reading you want to avoid stopping method six look after your eyes we
often take our eyes for granted many of us likely don't do any i care and if anything do things that
harm our eyes such as being too close to the computer screen watching too much tv or playing
video games for hours at a time without any breaks and maybe we don't allow ourselves enough sleep or
expose our eyes to too much light and we need to look after our eyes in general but when it comes
to reading it can go a long way it can help avoid tired eyes and keep them working better for longer
and therefore your reading speed will increase so here are a few ways you can go about this firstly
is to make sure that you're always reading in a well-lit room this is to ensure that your eyes are
not strained to read every word which by itself will also reduce your reading speed anyway so it
just makes sense to read in well-lit conditions and as suggested also make sure you sleep well
and avoid abusing your eyes too much by being glued to the screen for long periods of time
make sure that you give your eyes a break every so often but a really valuable tip comes from speed
reading specialist bernard wesler who advises to hold your book or whatever you're reading at a 30
angle to your eyes so never read material lying flat on a table or desk and wesley says reading
from a flat material is painful to your retina causes eye fatigue and after about two hours often
leads to dry eye and irritation he even suggested to adjust the angle of your computer screen to 30
degrees also and in addition before you start reading wesley suggests you warm up your eyes
he says it sharpens your vision and activates your peripheral sight to speed up your learning speed
this daily one minute exercise may help you avoid eye muscle fatigue here's how focus on a single
spot on a wall 10 feet in front of you keeping your head very still and with your right hand
extend it in front of you at eye level and trace an 18 inch infinity symbol so a sideways eight
and follow it with your eyes three or four times switch hands and trace the symbol with your other
hand effectively awakening both sides of your brain drop your hand and trace the symbol 12 times
in one direction with your eyes alone and then switch moving your eyes in the other direction
another method of warming up your eyes as well as your brain is to read something you enjoy
like a novel or an autobiography and this will help you relax into reading in an enjoyable way
rather than going straight into text that could be highly complex and intellectual method seven
self-motivate and incentivize it can be really difficult to force yourself to read especially if
it's not particularly entertaining and even the most interesting of subjects will sometimes
have boring parts and you may feel tempted to force yourself down at certain times and not
allow yourself to get up until you've finished that chapter or that section of the book but
my advice is to not do this you can lead a horse to water but you can't force it to drink and the
same goes for reading you can force yourself to read the words but it's incredibly difficult to
force yourself to take in the information to take in the ideas and the concepts and the likelihood
is you'll only frustrate yourself further so instead you need to be flexible with your approach
waiting for those moments you feel motivated and then you read of course you can't wait forever
which is why techniques for self-motivation such as watching study motivational videos speaking to
your tutor or watching an inspirational film can help but also reading for fun can help
get in the mood as noted before it's also ideal to make sure you are carrying at least one reading
book wherever you go so when the mood strikes you can just get out the book and start reading and i
found this really useful as sometimes i'd leave my last class of the day to go home and find a second
wind to start studying i'd whip out my book and start reading on the train but also remember to
reward yourself with things like your favorite tv show maybe a snack or a trip to the gym
it will help self-motivation and help you feel accomplished and satisfied after the reading is
over and the dopamine you feel after a good read will add reinforcement for you to do it again
significantly increasing your reading speed will take time and as mentioned
consistent practice will have compound effects and over time you will see the results but
make sure that you go easy and don't sacrifice the quality of your reading for the quantity of
the reading and once again the transformer grading 30 days course is now live we're only running the
promotional launch offer for a few more days so if you haven't already click on the description
below to sign up and i can't wait to help you level up your studying and transform your grades