Not surprisingly speed reading has a lot to do with taking good notes because comprehension of what we read increases significantly with the kind of notes we take and how often we review those (See "Taking Notes" ) Effective speed reading increases If you practice the skills in this chapter you should double or triple your reading speed and increase your Reading to understand the material is better than reading to remember, for you cannot really remember information that you do not understand except in the short This chapter deals with reading for The chapter is divided as follows: Personal Reading Position, Preparation of Reading Material, Reading with Purpose, Speed R Personal Reading Position Reading while laying on your bed or sitting in your best old worn chair may be very comfortable but these are the worst possible positions if you want to comprehend and remember what you have Reserve your leisurely positions for your leisure There are two positions that are best for effective reading: sitting in a firm chair with your feet curled under the chair; the book is propped up in front of you at a 45 degree angle so that your eyes do not have to refocus as you go up and down each page, standing with your reading material again at a 45 degree You can make a platform for your book on a high chest of drawers or similar piece of furniture so that it acts as a These positions are effective because they involve you using body energy to maintain these You need to use approximately 20% of your body energy to be active enough to read comprehensively and with increased As we use so little of our mental capacity (less than 10% on average) we need to activate our body energy so that our reading is not sleep This really works! To read effectively we must also eat proper meals especially sufficient proteins, calcium, potassium and iodine Sufficient sleep will also increase your abilities Preparation of the Reading Material Before you read any book you need to prepare it so that you do not struggle with the book's pages while preserving the book's Begin at the outside of the book (the front and rear covers) and take a few pages from each end and make a fold along the binding at the bottom of the Take the following few pages from each end and fold along the binding again repeating this process until you reach the middle of the In this way the pages have been bent so that the book will stay open at any page without worrying about breaking the binding or having the pages fall Reading with Purpose Often people ask if speed reading results in less If you imagine reading a book of 500 pages and reading 1020 pages per day as many of us do, it could take us over a month to read the whole book (if we ever complete it at all!) When you have finished such a book ask yourself how much you remember from the beginning of the book or even the previous chapter and you will recognize that no one remembers 100% of any In fact, reading at a average speed usually means that you forget most of what you read, remembering only the details of what you have read within the last hour or Therefore, reading more quickly can actually increase comprehension! We are taught to read in elementary school by reading words Most people speak at about 200300 words a minute so that our average reading speed is about the At such a rate we would read a normal page in about 2 We could be reading it at a much more productive rate of 2030 Not only is our reading limited by how fast we can "say" the words we are reading but we also do two other things to slow us The first is called When we read about 100 words on a page our eyes often stop 10 or 11 times to rest on a word or to go back to a word we have already read to make sure we understand This dramatically reduces our reading If that is not enough to slow us down we waste about 20% of our reading time turning pages! Next time you read, watch how much time you might fumble turning the pages: licking a finger to get a good grip, or separating the pages so you turn only The greatest mistake we make is to begin reading on page 1 and continuing until we get We know very little about the book, how it is structured, why the author wrote it, what conclusions will be reached, and how much of the information is important for us to understand and Reading with purpose gives you CONTROL over the material rather than the other way You begin by asking yourself: · how worthwhile is this material relative to other information on this subject? · what do I really need to understand and remember (specifically) from this material? Having an idea of the importance of your material you can begin to divide the material into manageable This is done as follows: ask yourself the basic questions (WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY & HOW); preview the book to get a brief idea of it's content (much like a television guide summary of a movie); add questions and ideas based on your preview to those you have already written down; read units (chapters or sections) one at a time; take notes to answer your questions and add further questions/ideas; quickly review the unit just completed to add any final notes; review your notes as outlined in the "Taking Notes"