Speed Reading as a Technique to Train Memory

By Richard Nolan, Guest Contributor

speed readingIn today’s stiff and competitive world of academics, students are required to have a good memory and the ability to read faster in order to cope with bulky study materials over a short study time. Applying the right techniques and good practice will help you read faster and have better memory and writing speeds.

Learning speed reading techniques enables you to engage yourself more to what you’re reading because of the efficient utilization of your brain power than normal reading. Learning and practicing these techniques will enable you to train your memory to read faster and comprehend easily.

Vision span

Increasing eye span during reading enables you to easily comprehend words and sentences. Do wide reading with  a clear objective. Write down major points, try to remember names and lists, and avoid distractions during reading.

The first step to reading is seeing, and one needs to read several words in a single glance to be able to increase their reading speed. This is important as it will enable your mind to absorb larger chunks of text and leads to better comprehension of words and sentences.

One also needs to expand their vision so that they can be able to read and understand many words in a single glance. You can place your reading material at an appropriate distance whereby you’re able to have a good view of what you’re reading. A good reading vision is whereby your eyes can read both horizontally and vertically on a page.

Regression and Vocalizing

Poor reading habits such as visual regression and vocalization greatly slow one’s reading speed. When reading, try and avoid reading sentences aloud. Sounding out words during reading slows you down. It is therefore important to train yourself not to vocalize your reading. You can break these habits by using your finger or a pen as a pointer to avoid re-reading, chewing gum to avoid vocalization, and also avoid distractions in order to obtain maximum concentration.

Develop a Reading Habit

Regular and wide reading helps train your mind to be able to adapt easily to speed reading. It’s like regular exercise for your brain. With wide reading, you’re able to encounter many new words which you get to decode their pronunciations and learn their meaning. By learning the new words and definitions, you increase your vocabulary. This is important as having wide vocabulary increases your reading speed as you don’t have to slow down or stop at new words.

Concentration

Speed reading trains your memory to be able to have long concentration spans because when you speed read, you do many things at once. It keeps the brain at pace making it able to have longer concentration spans.

Comprehension

speed readingThe purpose of reading is to comprehend or get the information. How well you comprehend is determined by your reading speed. Your comprehension tends to diminish with low reading speed. Speed reading teaches you good reading skills that will enable you to know when to slow down or increase your reading pace according to the content that you’re reading.

Also, your degree of familiarity with the subject matter determines how well you comprehend what you read and affects your reading speed. For new and complex subjects, you will need to concentrate more and read at a reduced speed in order to grasp the content.

Also, your degree of familiarity with the subject matter determines how well you comprehend what you read and affects your reading speed. For new and complex subjects, you will need to concentrate more and read at a reduced speed in order to grasp the content.

Also, your degree of familiarity with the subject matter determines how well you comprehend what you read and affects your reading speed. For new and complex subjects, you will need to concentrate more and read at a reduced speed in order to grasp the content.

Also, your degree of familiarity with the subject matter determines how well you comprehend what you read and affects your reading speed. For new and complex subjects, you will need to concentrate more and read at a reduced speed in order to grasp the content.

Here are some speed reading techniques to train the memory:

Meta guiding – It involves the use of one’s finger or pointer to guide your eyes to specific words, and in turn helps the eye move faster along the length of a passage or text.

Skimming – with this process, one visually searches sentences of a page for clues or meaning and involves skipping information or words that seem unnecessary, thereby being able to cover a wide section of reading.

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation – It involves the sweeping motion of words, one at a time, which catches the attention of the eyes and helps one to read quickly.

Chunk Reading – Chunking words together in blocks enables one to read faster by expanding the number of words being covered at a time. It also helps your brain easily understand the words and sentences and comprehend the overall structure of a sentence.

Training Your Memory

Reading is one of the methods that we employ to acquire knowledge and information and it requires memory to store them. Therefore, it is important for students to train their memory well to enable them easily comprehend, store, and recall what they’ve learned.

A few techniques to help train and enhance your memory with speed reading:

1. Recalling Technique
Try recalling what you’ve read by putting the source aside and restating what you’ve learned in your own words. This helps you improve your reading comprehension and understanding of what you’ve read.

2. First-Letter Text Method
This method can be used to enable you to remember large text as they are like poems, definitions, and order of events. It involves writing down the first letters of every word in the text that you want to memorize. A lot of practice is needed to achieve good results.

3. The Peg System
With this method, you can train your memory to learn new things especially definitions, specific terms, and concepts. It involves relating what you’ve learned to numbers or letter which you can come back and refer to later.

4. The Link System
This method involves linking together things that you want to remember. It’s very useful in enriching your vocabulary.

5. The Theory of Mood Memory Technique
Our brains tend to do things according to moods. When we’re in happy moods, it tends to have a high affinity to learning new things. When in a bad mood, the brain tends to shut itself down, becomes slow or wanders. Try to have a positive mindset and recreate good feelings as this greatly enhances content absorption and retention during reading.

Reading tips to help you improve your reading speed and train your memory:

1. Skim Before You Read
Skimming helps you to improve your comprehension and create a mental image of your reading material by rapidly going through your text before reading.

2. Improve Your Fluency to Improve Your Speed
Reading widely helps you to improve your fluency and in turn, increases your reading speed because you get to build a larger base of vocabulary.

3. Know What You Want, Before You Read It
It’s important to know what you want in your reading material as this will enable you to skip unnecessary information thereby have more time to concentrate on important sections of your document. Passing through the table of contents, synopsis, and summaries really enable you to know where to focus your reading. Also, skimming gives you an overall idea of where to concentrate at during your reading.

Conclusion
Memory plays a vital role in our learning process and storage of information. It’s important that we learn how to effectively train and take good care of our mind as it plays an important role in our study and work activities. The above speed reading techniques will help you as a student to train your memory. Just like the body needs exercise to stay fit and healthy, the brain too requires training in order to be sharp and retain information easily. Nothing comes easy but with sheer discipline and training your body and remember to write up a study plan, you’ll need one!


Author’s Bio:
Richard Nolan is a writer and a private tutor, sharing his experience in spheres of writing, blogging, entrepreneurship and psychology. Richard writes for numerous blogs and gives useful tips for bloggers and students. Currently, Richard works as a general blog editor for ProWritersCenter. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook


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