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If you think only the smart ones can read faster, then guess again. Anyone can improve their reading speed without sacrificing their comprehension skills. Being able to read faster means that you have more information at your disposal. Having this ability will give you a decided edge at any endeavor – especially in school, at work, or even during leisure.
Some people have developed their reading skills to the point that they can read an entire book in one sitting. For ordinary people that still have to read aloud or point at what they are reading to keep track of where they are, this can prove to be quite frustrating. However, there is a secret to unlock your reading skills so that they can dramatically increase exponentially.
The secret is increasing the periphery of your vision and exercising your eye muscles.
When you read, your eye leaps from one position on the page to another. This is called a saccade. Some people can only read one word per saccade. This forces them to perform numerous saccades per line of text. Faster readers can absorb more text per line; this results in fewer saccades per line of text. The fastest of them all can even swallow in a whole paragraph per glance.
Now if you think this is just some freak ability, you will be in for a surprise. It is possible to decrease the number of saccades per page and the speed of leaps between saccades.
To improve your ability to absorb words per saccade, you will have to perform some exercises to train your mind to absorb more. Some people are taught to read one word at a time. This is good for beginners. But as you grow older and get better at reading, you will need to be able to increase this through practice.
You do not have to concern yourself with comprehension at first. Just try to expand the focus of your mind as you go through groups of words. Try exercising this by scanning through a text document with emphasis on speed and word recognition. Contrary to what some believe, your mind is neither slow nor limited to a certain number of words per minute. If you train your eyes to scan and recognize quickly, your mind will follow suit.
After this sort of exercise, you will want to test your comprehension next. You could use any book to perform this, or you could use a reading application especially designed for this purpose.
There are numerous eye-movement exercises to help your eye muscles react more quickly and to help you read faster. These exercises involve lateral eye movements and are good warm ups for reading activities.
When practicing your speed reading, remember that rest is very important. Do not overstress your eyes, and give them a few minutes break after 20 minutes of reading. This will give your eyes a chance to refocus and rest a bit from reading movements.
Given proper reading training and techniques, one may be able to increase his or her reading speed by as much as four times upon the first few days of training. This is an exponential increase in the inflow of knowledge and information in person. Why don't you try a speed reading program today? It will definitely increase your enjoyment and acquisition of knowledge, and will definitely show you that reading is not just for the smart ones.