Table of Contents
Start of Chapter : Introduction - Memletics Effective speed reading
Previous: More common speed reading myths
Reading for comprehension and speed
To comprehend what you read, you need to read the words. Skim reading, or skipping some words, does help with the learning process, and helps locate important information quickly. However, your comprehension suffers.
The good news is you can improve your normal reading speed while keeping up comprehension. You can do this without software, machines, hypnotherapy, music, image streaming or PhotoReading. The minimum equipment needed is your finger! Educational research and leading speed-reading coaches point out you can learn to read faster using simple techniques, drills and practice. So, you don't need to spend anywhere from $50 to hundreds of dollars. You might want to consider a course if you have significant trouble with reading or trouble applying yourself. If you are already reading this book, you have the information and existing skills needed to increase your reading speed.
Speed reading courses attract people because they often advertise that you can learn faster simply by learning to read faster. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Books have varying degrees of useful information in them. If you want to learn and remember what you read, you need to extract "raw material." Think of it like mining for diamonds. You have to sort through much raw material (rock) to find the gems.
Unfortunately, many people stop here, believing that reading a book is enough to learn those raw gems of content. But, to learn a book well, you then need to take those gems through a learning process. You need to explore the material and turn what you've found into knowledge that's relevant to you. Then, you need to work out how you are going to keep that information. Finally, you need to reinforce what you've learned to store that information for the long term. Each of these steps helps you "lock in" what you've read.
This course will help you read faster. The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual (separate book) describes the learning process in much more detail. See the appendices if you would like an overview of the Memletics Accelerated Learning System.
Next : Six parts to effective reading
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