How Many Words-Per-Minute Do You Read?
Reading fast is a professional and personal asset, it is possible to improve your reading speed significantly by using various techniques and methods, like the use of guides (cards, fingers, pens...) or skimming, scanning and skipping ... and plenty of others.
According to University Author Abby Marks Beale, we can classify reader based on their Words per Minutes (wpm) performance: - 100-200 wpm slow reader - 200-300 wpm average reader - 300-400 wpm good reader - 400-500 wpm excellent reader Obviously, reading fast is an asset in life, and perhaps even more so if you are a student; in the same amount of time, a reader with 400 wpm can read two books and his buddy with 200 wpm can only read one.
You can easily imagine what a difference that can make at the end of a single school year. And even after graduation, there are so many situations - apart from books - where knowing how to read quickly and grasp essential knowledge is an asset: if you need to read a report, or a magazine, or documents, or brochures or whatever else whether for work or for personal reasons.
While preparing for a meeting a fast reader can get edge over a slower one (But again correct knowledge is the key here)and in your life saving time results in reading more and relaxing more. The book 10 Days to Faster Reading is supposed to increase your reading speed. It is divided into 10 chapters, designed to be read in as many days (but you can obviously read it faster, as I did), all built around a comparison with driving a racing car.
The recommended techniques of this book can be divided primarily into five different categories:
- Challenge the ideas and concepts, which were valid when you learned to read, but no longer apply, to read every word, that you shouldn't use your fingers or anything else to guide you, etc. This is the main theme of chapter 1.
- Guides: Every chapter teaches a new one. The idea is to guide your eyes with something. This might be your fingers, a business card, a piece of paper, etc. This help you to focus your eyes where you want with your own speed.
- Everything that has to do with concentration, with your environment, and to the reasons why you are reading. Asking yourself simply "what am I expecting from this book? What do I want to find out? What am I going to do with this new knowledge? " allows you to choose and retain more easily what is important.
- Adapt to what you are reading and the content: you don't read a novel, a newspaper or a technical manual in the same way.
- The techniques allow you to determine what not to read: skim, scan and skip.
About the Author
Olivier Roland is a French Entrepreneur and the Blogger of Books that can change your life
"Butterfly" with Phyllis Ferguson
