“Quick-Fix Workshop”

Communications Centre

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Essential Skill

• Speed Reading helps you read and understand text more quickly.

• It is an essential skill in any environment where you have to understand a large amount of information quickly (every fast-moving professional environment).

 

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Improving Reading Speed:

• Everyone can double their speed of reading while maintaining equal or even higher comprehension.

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Words Per Minute

• The average college student reads between 250 and 350 words per minute on fiction and non-technical materials.

• A "good" reading speed is around 500 to 700 words per minute, but some people can read a thousand words per minute or even faster.

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What makes the difference?

• There are three main factors involved in improving reading speed:

(1) the desire to improve

(2) the willingness to try new techniques

(3) the motivation to practice.

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What You Need First

• necessary vocabulary • comprehension skills

If you understand college-level materials, you are ready for speed reading practice

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Relationship between Rate and Comprehension

An increase in rate has been paralleled by an increase in comprehension.

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Don’t ‘Plod’

“Although there is at present little statistical evidence, it seems that plodding word-by-word (or word reading) inhibits understanding”.

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You Need the Right Method

In order to increase your reading rate and increase your comprehension you need to adopt the right method.

Don’t simply start reading more rapidly – this won’t improve your basic reading habits.

In fact, it usually results in lowered comprehension.

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Factors that Reduce Reading Rate

(a) word-by-word reading (b) slowness of recognition and slow response to the material

(c) vocalization, including the need to vocalize in order to achieve comprehension (d) faulty eye movements(e) regression, (habitual or lack of concentration)

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Factors…

(f) faulty processes of retention (g) lack of practice in reading due to time constraints or lack of interest in reading (h) fear of losing comprehension,

myth: if you spend more time on individual words, comprehension will increase (i) habitual slow reading (he has always read slowly)

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Factors…

• (j) poor evaluation (which aspects are important and which are unimportant)

• (k) the effort to remember everything rather than to remember selectively

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Basic Conditions for Increased Reading Rate

A well planned program designed to

maximize your reading rate must

involve ‘necessary conditions’.

Four basic conditions include:

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Condition One

• Before embarking on a speed reading program, have your eyes checked

• Often, very slow reading is related to uncorrected eye defects.

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Condition Two

• Eliminate the habit of pronouncing words as you read.

• You can read only as fast as you can read aloud.

You should be able to read most materials at least two or three times faster silently than orally.

• Try to concentrate on key words and meaningful ideas as you force yourself to read faster.

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Condition Three• Avoid regressing (rereading).

The average student reading at 250 words per minute regresses or rereads about 20 times per page.

• Rereading words and phrases is a habit that will

slow your reading speed down to a snail's pace.

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Condition Three…

Usually, it is unnecessary to reread words, for the ideas you want are explained and elaborated more fully in later contexts.

Furthermore, the slowest reader usually regresses most frequently because his mind has time to wander.

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Condition Four

• Develop a wider eye-span:

This will help you read more than one word at a glance. Since written material is less meaningful if read word by word, this will help you learn to read by phrases or thought units.

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Rate Adjustment

The effective reader adjusts his rate; the ineffective reader uses the same rate for all types of material.

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What Do You Want from this Document?

The most important trick about speed reading is to know what information you want from a document before you start reading it

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Outline vs. Thorough Understanding• If you only want an outline of the issue that

the document discusses, then you can skim the document very quickly and extract only the essential facts.

• If you need to understand the real detail of the document, then you need to read it slowly enough to fully understand it.

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Test Yourself

http://www.readingsoft.com/

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A Skilled Reader

• reads many words in each block and dwells on each block for an instant

• rarely skips back to a previous block of words

• this reduces the amount of work that the reader's eyes have to do

• increases the volume of information that can be examined in a period of time

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A Poor Reader

• is overwhelmed, spends a lot of time reading small blocks of words

• skips back often, loses the flow and structure of the text and overall understanding of the subject

• has irregular eye movements, which makes reading tiring

• dislikes reading, and may find it harder to concentrate and understand written information

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Increase, Reduce, Reduce

Speed reading aims to improve reading skills by:1. increasing the number of words read in

each block 2. reducing the length of time spent

reading each block, and 3. reducing the number of times your eyes

skip back to a previous sentence

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Increasing the number of words in each block:

• conscious effort • try to expand the number of words that you

read at a time • practice will help you to read faster • you may also find that you can increase the

number of words read by holding the text a little further from your eyes

• the more words you can read in each block, the faster you will read!

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Reducing Fixation Time:

• The minimum length of time needed to read each block: a quarter of a second.

• Push yourself to reduce the time you take! • And…you will get better at picking up

information quickly.

• Practice and Confidence!

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Reducing Skip-Back:

• To reduce the number of times that your eyes skip back to a previous sentence, run a pointer along the line as you read.

your eyes will follow

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Experiment Using these Techniques

• Previewing• Skimming• Clustering

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Previewing

• Previewing: Read the entire two paragraphs and the first sentence of each successive paragraph and then read the entire last two paragraphs.

• Previewing doesn’t give you all of the details, but it does keep you from spending time on unnecessary information.

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Skimming

• Think of your eyes as magnets; force them to move fast. Sweep them across each and every line.

• Skimming can give you a general impression of a text in less than half the time it would take you to read every word.

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Clustering

• Train your eyes to see all the words in clusters of up to three or four words at a glance.

• Clustering trains you to look at groups of words and ideas instead of at one at a time. This will increase your speed and comprehension enormously.

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Summary of Tips

• Make fewer fixations per line.• Concentrate on key words.• Break sentences into logical thought groups.• Eliminate bad reading habits – don’t regress.

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Most Importantly:

• Read regularly – practice is important – make reading habitual.

• Improve your vocabulary. Strange words interfere with understanding – become familiar with a new word everyday.

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Suggestions

• Join a book club.• Read every night before you go to bed.• Purchase a newspaper and/or magazine

subscription (or visit the library everyday).• Turn off the TV.

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