. But the way to increase your reading speed isn’t some sort of magical quick-fix.
The best advice for increasing your speed is to read more, and to read a variety of texts, but there are some techniques you can learn – and old habits you can learn to break, to increase your speed.
“A lot of people will come and maybe start off reading at about 300 words per minute,” says Jacob Lister, head of training at Write Group. “By the time they leave, they’ll be reading 800 to 1000 words per minute.”
University students, lawyers, policy writers, and MPs are common clients.
For Labour MP Reuben Davidson, he’s unequivocal that the speed reading course is the most valuable professional development course he’s ever done, although he took some convincing.
“Before, when people talked about potentially doing the course, the first thing that sprung to my mind was that scene from [Australian comedy] Kath & Kim where where Kath’s running her finger through the book and moving her lips at great speed, and that didn’t compel me to want to do it.”
But Davidson says he can now read at between 1200 to 1600 words per minute.
“It’s a hugely valuable skill.
“It’s not uncommon to receive an agenda and supporting documents, 24 to 48 hours before a meeting, and it’s a stack of paper that’s maybe 30 centimetres high.”
Reuben Davidson.
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How is speed reading taught?
There are reading drills that teach new skills, such as “chunking” (grouping sets of words that often appear together), fast-paced scanning exercises, and time using a tachistoscope – when words are flashed at you at a rate between 4,000 and 24,000 words per minute.
However a key part of learning to speed read is breaking the bad habits that slow you down – and almost everyone does them, says Lister.
Rereading is the most common issue, and that’s often because you’re distracted, or reading too slowly.
“If people are reading slowly, they have too much mental capacity available so that their mind wanders off and they’re not actually paying attention to the text.”
Even if you come across an unfamiliar term, the advice is to carry on reading, and the meaning may become clear from the context.
Another common bad habit, explains Lister, is reading at the speed you talk – called sub-vocalisation.
“That’s way slower than you’re able to process information if you’re just reading with your eyes,” says Lister.
“We speak between 200 to 400 words per minute, but we’re capable of reading many times that speed.”
Lastly, the training will teach you to stop reading every. single. word.
“People tend to make too many stops with their eyes, when actually what we want people to do is read sets of words together”.
These various drills are combined with time on an ‘accelerator’, a device that blocks the text as you read, so you can’t pause or go back.
This pushes you to read faster than your comfort level; training the brain to adapt and engage the skills learned.
Comprehension versus speed
Comprehension is regularly tested throughout the course, with students doubling or tripling their speeds without losing comprehension.
“They don’t just ask ‘what’s the vibe’? There are very specific tests where you’re asked 20 questions about a passage you’ve just read,” says Davidson.
He says at the beginning of the course his comprehension was gauged at about 85 percent, and when he repeated the test at the end at his new, faster reading speed, his comprehension remained at 80 to 85 percent.
“So for quadrupling the speed and only dropping comprehension by as little as 5 percent, it was remarkable.”
Wellington lawyer Nikki Bloomfield learnt to speed read several years ago, and says learning to trust that her brain had absorbed the text was pivotal.
“That’s the secret brain trick of the whole thing. There’s this whole assumption that to read carefully, you have to read slowly. It’s almost the whole point of the course is to overcome your own cynicism that reading fast means you’re going to miss things.”
Wellington lawyer Nikki Bloomfield was expected – and sometimes required – to dress a certain way at the start of her legal career.
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Does it change how you read novels?
What does this mean for reading for pleasure? Are you suddenly going to be stuck on high speed, ploughing through a novel a day?
No, says Lister. You can adjust your reading strategies for different purposes, and not all texts are suitable for speed techniques.
If your job requires you to read lots of reports and it’s a well-written document you can trust that the writer has put the ideas in the right place, allowing you to read much faster, explains Lister.
But with fiction, key ideas can be scattered anywhere on the page.
“For me, it’s a little bit like walking and running. Just because you can run fast, doesn’t mean you can’t still go for a wander and enjoy it,” says Davidson.
Is this even a necessary skill in the age of AI?
In the age of artificial intelligence, it may be tempting to hand over the work of reading, analysing and summarising large documents to AI tools.
But Lister isn’t worried about AI making these skills redundant.
“AI can’t think. It processes information based on predetermined patterns, but it isn’t able to rationalise or reason why information might be more important for our context.”
For Davidson, learning to speed read really speaks to the wonders of the brain.
“It is like magic…That even at my age, you can still teach your brain to do something that it’s been doing for decades, but to do it differently and faster with the same results. I just think that is fantastic.”
Tips to increase your reading speed
Read more, and read a variety of texts
Try not to read at your speaking speed
Stop rereading, trust that you’ve understood what you’ve read
Don’t read every single word; look for chunks of words