Today I went to a class that talked about how to become a better reader and it was really interesting.

The teacher started off by having us calculate our “words read per minute” I kind of messed it up because I thought we were supposed to stop once we reached the bottom of the page, even so my rate was about 380 wpm. Average.

Then he talked about how we learn to read. First we recognize letters, then groups of letters, then words, then word shapes, and then groups of words. Most people stop there.

But he talked about his friend who wanted to train himself to be a better reader. He followed certain techniques and worked on it for a long time. Now that friend reads 1100 wpm, four lines of text at a time. Crazy right?

But I know what some of you are thinking, speed doesn’t make you a better reader does it? You can comprehend more if you slow down a bit.

Nope.

While speed doesn’t exactly make you a better reader, it is an element in becoming a good reader. Your brain finds that ideas are easier to connect and understand the faster you read them. And this man who followed the techniques found that he no longer saw words, or word shapes, or even groups of words, he saw pictures. Reading was like watching a movie for him because he was able to effectively absorb the text.

We were all aghast. How did he do it? That seems impossible. Four lines of text at once? That’s crazy!

Well, the teacher didn’t really expect us to be able to do that very soon, but he gave us some simple techniques to improve our reading skills:

Pause
When you have just finished reading something, especially in difficult text, pause for a moment and let the text sink in. If you don’t do think you could become “glassy eyed” and realize half-way through the next page that you didn’t comprehend anything you read.

Preview
Also a technique used mainly for difficult text. There are different ways to do this:
---If there is beginning info (i.e. author name, summation, etc) read that.
---Read the first sentence of the first few paragraphs so your mind knows what to expect.
---Or do whatever feels comfortable

Point
Follow the text with your finger. Sometimes words themselves distract us and we miss what we’re reading because we’re thinking about the words on the page. By having your finger run along the page you have something to anchor yourself.

Posture
People weren’t meant to read sideways or upside-down. So unless you’re reading something that doesn’t need to be fully understood, read it right-side-up.

Purpose
Why are you reading this? Is it for fun? School? A test? Adjust your technique accordingly.

Paraphrase
Used mainly for very difficult text. If you don’t understand a paragraph, rewrite it in six words or less. Or you can you symbols and pictures.

Practice
These won’t come naturally. You have to practice them. It may seem like you’re taking a step back and that it takes you longer to read something using these strategies, but you’ll never get better if you don’t practice.

~

Those are the techniques. Some of them I don’t agree with, namely “Point” because I can never get my finger to move as fast as my brain or my eyes, but apparently it works. And hey, I wouldn’t complain if I could read 1100 wpm.

So that’s basically my entire class. It’s almost like you were there! ;)

ADDED: Because of this class, I got a perfect 36 on the reading portion of the ACT. It works! It really works!

~Enna Isilee