Speed reading exercises aim to increase the rate of reading without affecting retention or comprehension of the text. There are many different methods for speed reading but the essential is that they all focus on a balance between speed and comprehension. Another thing; they all necessitate a certain amount of practice.

Speed readers may use different techniques like not sounding-out all words, recognizing words without focusing on each letter and generally skimming over the text. Some methods may come more naturally to the reader and these will be defined with practice and exercises. In general, the idea is to get your eyes to move faster and recognize words at a glance.

Skimming is the way a reader can search visually through a text for clues to what the meaning of the article might be. In general, skimming is not considered the most effective method for texts that are denser in information because it doesn’t lead to a great comprehension. Oppositely, this method is effective to grasp the essential meaning of a text.

Meta guiding is another way of speed reading and may be the most popular to speed up your reading process. In meta guiding, the reader has to guide the eyes along the lines of text by following a pointer in the form of a pen or a finger. This following forces the eyes to speed up and discourages subvocalization.

A first speed reading exercise to start with consists of using a pointer like your finger to make your eyes follow it across the paragraph to go faster. Moving the finger faster and faster will force the eyes to recognize the words faster and make reading a faster process.

Another exercise to try to attempt to learn a speed reading technique consists of quickly scanning through the material to look for key words attached to the essential meaning of the sentences. In essence, this is reading in blocks and is also done in other exercises which can become more complicated.

This next exercise requires a little more preparation time and index cards. The index cards need to be prepared with blocks of words, phrases or sentence fragments. This exercise will consist of reading directly from the index cards instead of using a full text. For a few minutes, flip through the cards and try to quickly recognize the group of words that figure on every card. Effectively, this works word recognition mechanisms to accelerate the rate at which fragments of sentences are read.

All speed reading exercises require a certain time investment in order to be effective. It is generally a good idea to be well rested to have the best possible level of concentration while doing these exercises. It will take time and effective practice before a reader can see results. It is possible to read really fast and still achieve a good retention and comprehension rate.

Speed reading can be a great tool for the academic or the professional world alike. It is fairly easy to learn and doesn’t cost a thing. All that is needed is a few speed reading exercises, some patience and a little determination.

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John E Laing is an speed Reading expert. John has over 5 years experience teaching and testing new methods to help people learn to read better and faster and to read more efficiently. You can learn more about speed reading at speed reading center. For more amazing exercises check the speed reading exercises article.