Bad habits of reading: passive daydreaming, regression (rereading) and subvocalizing
Have a clear purpose, preview the book – intro paras, titles and sub titles, and finally speed reading techniques
- Focus only on imp keywords and skip the rest
- Another strategy is to stop your eyes on thought groups instead of separate words. Imagine phrases as being separated by slashes: By looking for/thought groups,/you force your eyes/to move forward faster/while maintaining/good comprehension.
- One way to overcome the habit of subvocalizing is to focus on the white space just above each line. This way, you can still see the top half of the letters and can thus easily understand them without becoming fixated on the words themselves.
- Another strategy called the indenting method involves using your peripheral vision. Instead of placing your eyes at the beginning of each line, try aiming them half an inch inside the left margin, and then stop reading half an inch before the right margin.
- Use your hand or a pen to lead your eyes and create fast reading habits
- When reading narrow columns like the kinds found in newspapers, you can place your index finger in the center of a paragraph just under the line you’re reading. Move it either straight down or in the shape of a snake as you read across a line in order to guide your eyes.
- Next, cover the text you’ve already read in order to avoid regression. One way to do this is by using the business card method; another requires only using your hand. Make a fist with your left hand, and sticking your thumb out to the side. Then, just place your hand horizontally or vertically over the text you have just read
- Give yourself a five-minute break every 20 to 30 minutes so your brain and eyes can rest. And don’t read for more than an hour before taking your break!
