<p>I was just curious what everyone on here thinks of it and if they've actually tried it.
I would like to learn because I've always felt my reading rates were a little slow and with a bunch of challenging classes + sports it can get really challenging to finish everything and still be able to get a normal amount of sleep :P</p>
<p>You need to learn how to skim for content, which means reading phrase by phrase, not word by word.</p>
<p>Get used to a lack of sleep! You can speed read (an should) but then you should read through the material again in a more intimate fashion.</p>
<p>I took two courses back to back. Best thing I ever did. In my course we tested comprehension so that you could validate the improvement. I raised my reading speed to a comfortable 1200 wpm. I was up to well over 2000 wpm but that was for fiction. At the technical level, the speed will drop but your overall speed will increase and it teaches you to be an active reader. It does work.</p>
<p>Oh wow 1200wpm is amazing! I would love to get close to that speed! How did you find out about the courses? All I’ve tried are books and I’m not sure those help all too much because it’s hard for me to keep doing it and make sure I’m doing it right. Are there any programs you recommend?</p>
<p>For my APUSH, I would speed read the chapter (which are far too long) and then thoroughly go through it. Its something you have to condition yourself to. The key thing is to recognize important phrases.</p>
<p>If you’re speaking about reading in regards to school, maybe pickup Cal Newport’s red book (I can’t remember the title, something something A+ or A). In regards to textbooks, he has a section about how to skimread through the content without reading everything and still getting everything you need to know about it. In fact, the section is called “don’t do all your reading” or something like that.</p>
<p>Off the top of my head, in case you don’t feel like buying the book, I think he said to:</p>
<p>Read the section title, the introduction, the first paragraph and the last paragraph and anything bolded (like key words): (or something like that. You might want to get the book, because I probably mucked his system up.) But it does work, it cut all of my reading down by tons and I didn’t miss any pertinent info.</p>
<p>Thanks feareman and PlattsburghLoser, I’ll keep those tips in mind</p>
<p>@PlattsburghLoser, a little bit of googling brought me across Cal Newport’s books. The one I’m assuming you were talking about is “How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less.” Sounds like a really interesting book. He has two other books and those are about doing well in college and getting into college, I’ll have to check those out sometime. From the titles they sound like they could be really useful</p>