Speed Reading

Ahmed Adamu, PhD

1
Introduction
• Learn tips and techniques that will instantly increase your reading
speed by 25 to 50%
• There are no bad readers_
• Reading is a skill just like any other, one that can be strengthened
and sharpened over time.
• In this session, I'll talk about the five obstacles that get in your way
of reading faster
• Before starting this session, I'd advise you to get a book so we can
practice these methods together.
• The ability to read faster is a huge competitive advantage that can
save you years of productivity while making life a whole lot easier.
• Superbrain, remember this "Leaders are readers."
Leaders are Readers
• Great and Successful people
• Age of data_
• Those successful_
• How fast you read is how fast you become ahead of others
• Direct relationship between reading and success_
What you will learn

• How to increase your reading speed

• Improve your comprehension by activating certain areas
of your brain
• Boost your reading focus and concentration
• Improve on reading speed, focus, comprehension and
retention
• Plan on reading
• And more
 The Gap

• You have so much on your shelf that you want

to read, but you could not read them.
• You might worry that if you read faster, you
might lose comprehension.
• You are at a right place to fix that.
 What you need for this session
• Your favorite book or the book you are currently reading
• Why would you read that book?
• Tap into your motivation- reasons reap results
• Derive the inspiration
• Open Mind
• Mind is like parachute, it works only when it is open
• Be willing to unlearn some bad habits- skimming or scanning
• Get rid of the Myth that there are good and bad readers- There are only
trained and untrained readers_
• If there is any skill to learn in 21st century is the skill to learn faster…
 Why Reading
• Readers are leaders- Leaders are Readers
• The Ability to read faster is a huge competitive
advantage that can save you years of productivity, while
making your life a whole lot easier
• You will have huge advantage in work and in life if you
can download decades of knowledge in your mind in
matter of days?
• Reading enhance your brain and focus
• How reading transformed a child with a broken brain
(reading is magic)
• He was advised to read to fix his brain- which worked
You are not alone

• Reading could be
boring and difficult for
some
• JIM Laughter
• If you don’t read, you
stopped learning_
 • Exercise the brain…like muscles_
• Improve memory
• Focus
• Vocabulary
What reading • Imagination
does to you • Understanding
 • Bring out your book and read with full
comprehension for 60 seconds
• Count the number of lines you read
• On average 10 words per line (that’s your words
per minute)
Activity • The answer is your current or beginning reading
rate (base rate)
• What is expected is 250-300 wpm
• By knowing your base rate, you will be able to
know if your techniques are effective or not.
Targets
• One book per month/week
• Each book contains averagely 64,000
words
• If you are average reader who reads
200 words per minutes and you read
for 45 minutes a day, you can roughly
read a book per week
• 52 books a year
If Reading Isn't Fun... You're
Not Doing It Right
 •Too busy to schedule a relaxed time for
reading_
•Slow reading_
•One word at a time
Why don’t people •They stopped learning how to read or
improve their reading abilities
read? •They don’t focus, they multi-task
•Many reason that reduces your Reading
efficiency
 Obstacles to effective reading

Lack of Education:
• Reading is a skill, must be learned
• Have you ever taken a class on
reading?
• Most people read in the same way
they read since childhood
Focus Vs Speed
• Don’t stem your mind, give it the stimulate
it needs-practice more Focus
• Speed increases focus.. Driving fast
• Faster readers have better
comprehension.(they have better focus)
• Is not true that when you read fast, you
wont focus
• With Focus there would not be trade off
between speed and comprehension
• Focus can be enhanced through practice
 Subvocalization:
• Your inner voice_ _
• Reading speed will be limited to your talking
speed, not your thinking speed.
• Talking speed 200 wpm
• You don’t have to say every word before you
understand it.
• Most words are sight words, -E.g Stop sign,
comma
• What to do?
• Don’t move your lips or occupy your mouth, chew
gum or counting from the inner.
• keep your mind busy so you can’t say the
words in your head.
 Bad skipping
Going and coming
Stopping at each word-

• When you focus your attention on these

larger ideas instead of words, the ideas seem
Regression: to just leap off the page into your mind.

• Reading phrase by phrase improves your

speed
 Limiting Beliefs

• What are your limiting beliefs

around your intelligence,
memory, your ability to read
faster-
• All behavior is belief driven. If
you think you can or you cant,
either way you are right.
• Now you are conscious of
what stands on the way, lets
talk about fixing these
obstacles.
Overcoming them

• Education: the first solution you are doing it

now, you are doing the education, so you
are fixing the first obstacle which is lack of
education.
Overcoming them
• Use Visual Pacer:
• Use finger, pen or highlighter
• Didn’t you use your hand to count the lines?
• Eyes: motions, survival_
• Visual Pacer fixed the eyes
• You also don’t have to take it to the end of the margin,-
• Nervous system: when hand harbors or touch the book it sends more connections and
signals to the brain, thereby improving concentration
• If someone loses sight, how do they read.. Sense of touch
• Sight and touch are closely linked.. When you use your hand, you will feel more in
touch
• The best way to do it is to sweep your finger across the page, right above the book,
follow the hand even without touching
• Visual pacer improves your speed by 25% to 50%
 • Practice: the more you read, the faster you become
in reading.
• Practice makes……,
• The more you read the faster your speed, focus
and comprehension.
• Don’t Subvocalize: inner speeches slow you down.
Overcoming • The brain will just create the visual images of
what your reading, and makes you immerse
them into it.
• Doing this will increase your speed.
• You have two eyes, the one you can see with
and the one in your brain. To achieve high
speed reading, use your brain eyes more.
• It helps you focus on the main idea, not
individual lines.
 Belief

• Belief: don’t give up, don’t listen to your negative self-

talks. _
• Your brain responds
• So, set your targets, not excuse and believe you can be
that faster reader.
• What you believe is what you become, so change your
belief about reading, and everything will fall in place.
• “The same thinking that created the problem won’t solve
the problem”, so change the thinking into positivity._
• Tap into your motivation, why do you want to read, why
do you want to be fast in reading, these will help
motivate you and change your belief.
• “Reasons reap results”, if you are motivated, you will not
procrastinate, so, keep eye on the goal. _
 State of Mind
• Your mood and your feelings affect your
reading speed.
• When you are happy and joyful, your
concentration and retention level is higher.
• So, before you come to reading, clear your
mind. And you have control over it. _
• Learning in a good emotion becomes long
term memory.
• What you learn or read when you are in a
good mood, you tend to stick longer.
• “If reading is not fun, then you are not
doing it right”.
 Environment: when you change
your environment, your focus
and speed will increase,

Change your location whenever

Environment you come to reading.

Moving to a different room to

read can increase your focus
and concentration.
Position

• Position the book well:

• Bad positions:
• Desk
• Collapse
• Visual reduction
• The lower one third of your lungs absorbs two
thirds of the oxygyn, so people get tired.
• So, instead collapsing your body, don’t move your
body, move the book.
• So hold it an angle where you can maximize the
size of the words and letters, and that makes it
easier to read.
 Time and Patience
• Remember reading skill is not a one-night skill that you
can acquire,
• It is acquired through practice and improvement, but
you have to start somewhere.
• It might take you some little time to be that perfect
reader, but if you stick to these techniques, you might
surprisingly be one of the fastest readers within no
time.
• Once you can read faster, your knowledge gateway has
increased.
• You will then be able to download more decades of
knowledge within no time.
• Focus on your end goal, set targets and endure.
Expand your peripheral Vision
• Your Peripheral vision is the span of letters or words that your eyes
can see in a single glance
• Expand it to take more words at a time
• Most of us were taught to read one word at a time. But we are
capable of reading more than that.
• Look at words in groups and what they are trying to communicate
together rather than one word
• Reduces subvocalization
• Reading a book will become like watching a movie
 Read again now using the visual pacer (60 seconds)

Test your speed with the use of hand

Count the lines and words

Activity 2
Any improvement?

It is good to always track your speed-it is a motivation

The lowest acceptable wpm is 200

Reading Speed
• Now your speed has increased within just few
minutes
• What if you keep doing it again and again
• Practice makes progress
• Reading takes a lot of time, and time is money, so
how you save more money by reading faster?
• The more you read, the faster your speed, focus and
comprehension
 • Reading is like exercise, you build stamina when you
stretch yourself
• You don’t get muscles grow when you pamper them, you
have to push them to where they are a little
uncomfortable for them to grow
• 4-3-2-1 Technique
4-3-2-1 • Reading same number of words for 4, then 3, then 2,
then 1 minutes
• So, you will see what you could read in 4 minutes,
you can read them in 1 minute.
• You may not understand anything on the fourth
time, but it is a speed drill exercise.- -
• However, when you normalize to where you are,
there will be an increase in your speed. Your base
rate will increase.
• It is like a muscle, it will adapt (reading muscles)
Schedule reading
and Grouping
• Schedule your reading every single day
• Schedule it when you are awake and alert, not
when you are too tired.
• 20-25 minutes, take a break
• If knowledge is power, reading is your
superpower.
• Make a commitment to read 15 minutes in a
day.
• Mark that bad reading habit you want to change
What you need to do
• What you need to do is to set target of
eventually reading 52 books a year, and
you can do that by reading a book in a
week and reading 200 words per
minutes. If you can dedicate a well
concentrated 45 minutes a day, you can
do that.
• Practice makes….
 Practice Practice using your finger while you read

Schedule your reading, if you don’t schedule it,

Schedule it wont happen

Home Work
Practice some of the tips for reducing
Practice subvocalization

Try the 4-3-2-1 technique, if you really want to

Try push or stretch yourself, practice this technique.
 • Go to www.spreeder.com

Self Reading set wpm targets

and test your comprehension
Development You can insert any article you wish to read
into the website too