Efficient Reading

EFFICIENT READING
• Can you read English sentences faster?
• How do you think our eyes and brain
recognize words and sentences?
• Which is important? Reading faster or
reproducing better?
• Do we read by words? or by sentences?
• What is efficient reading and how to
achieve it? And how “efficient reading” is
different from “Speed Reading”
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TRY TO READ THIS
• The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid!
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is
taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll
raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and
I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

SPEED READING
• Speed reading refers to techniques
and strategies that allow you to
read and understand more in less
time. Many speed-reading courses
and books focus on speed alone,
which apart from impressing your
friends, is not of much use.


I DO NOT HAVE TIME
• I do not have the time to read all the
magazines, books, papers and so on that
land on my desk. How can I cope?
• Simply reading faster is not the answer to
your problem. Much of the reading that
lands on our desk is not relevant and the
most effective strategy for dealing with
this problem is to be very selective in what
you choose to read, and prioritise
appropriately.

COMPREHENSION & RECALL
• Before you start reading, think for a
moment about why you are reading that
particular text and what you hope to
learn from it. Then concentrate while
reading, and make notes. When you
have finished reading, review whether
you achieved what you set out to
achieve.


EFFICIENT WAY TO READ A BOOK

• Unless you are reading a book
to appreciate the author’s use
of language and literary style,
you will learn most from a book
by adopting a structured,
multi-step process – think,
preview, read and review.

READ LESS!
• For most of us, the single best step to be taken
towards improved reading is to read less! We all tend
to read, or attempt to read, a lot of material that is
unnecessary, uninteresting and irrelevant. Time
wasted on such items could be much better spent on
necessary, interesting and relevant material.
• So how do you read less? The key is to pause and
think before reading anything. Ask the simple
question: ‘Why am I reading this?’. If there is a good
reason, then go ahead. Else STOP.
• Look at the hints in the next slides that may help you.


READ REGULARLY
• As with most skills, practice improve
reading: the more that you read, the
better you will get at reading, and the
more you will enjoy it. Given the huge
amount of reading that we all have to
do, it should not be allowed to be a
chore. And if you enjoy reading, you will
get better at reading, and learn more –
a truly virtuous circle.

PRIORITISE YOUR READING
• For most people, reading is a very
important part of their job, and so
should be appropriately prioritised
along with all the other essential tasks.
If you really need to read a complex
textbook, don’t just read a few pages in
bed each night for the next month – set
aside quality time and do the book
justice.

KEEP A READING FILE
• There will be a lot of shorter pieces of
reading (magazine articles, academic
papers and so on) that can be read very
efficiently during your wait times in a
railway station or at a clinic. However we
tend to forget them out over a period of
time. To avoid it, we can maintain a
reading file containing chronological
information about our reading.

IMPROVE YOUR VOCABULARY
• The better your vocabulary, the better you
will be able to read and comprehend.
Therefore, whenever you come across an
unfamiliar word, take time to look it up in
a dictionary, and make a note of its
meaning. If you are using a computer
frequently install a dictionary in it or refer
to online dictionaries to understand about
unfamiliar words.

APPROPRIATE ENVIRONMENT
• If you have to do a significant piece of
reading, then do so in the right
surroundings. Schedule a time of day
when you can best absorb the material,
sit comfortably, with good source of light.
• Once you finish the reading, do a recall
about what you have understood.


READ ACTIVELY
• We often tend to read passively –
a mechanical process of running
our eyes over the words while we
think about something else. In
order to learn from your reading,
you need to read actively and with
a purpose.

SPEED READING…..
• Since the invention of printing in Europe
in 1440, which eventually lead to mass
literacy, many people have yearned to be
able to read faster.
• If you search Google for the term ‘speed
reading’ you will get more than two
million results – most of them trying to
sell you a software or a course that will
make you read so fast.

SPEED + NEED
• Speed reading without comprehension is of no
practical use. The aim is to increase your
reading speed while ensuring that you fulfill
the object of reading – to take in and
learn what is important and new to you.
• You can see some guidelines in the next few
slides that could help you develop your speed
as well as meet the need.


Tips for effective RECALL
• Read with a purpose
• Tune in: While focusing your mind on the
subject of the item to be read, ask yourself:
what do I already know about this topic? What
else I will learn by reading this? What
questions I can answer after reading this?
• Preview: Look at introductions, structure of the
book or article, about the author etc.,
• Make notes.
• Review

What is my speed?
• Choose an article with about 1200 words.
• Press your stop clock and start reading.
• Note down the time taken in seconds, on
completion.
• For example, if you took 255 seconds to read
this article, then your reading speed will be:


But Remember…..
• The average reading speed of a normal person,
who have not practiced speed reading is
between 250 and 300 wpm.
• Don’t worry even if you are an average – but
check whether you could correctly answer
these questions:
• Who, or what, is the article about?
• When did the events take place?
• Where?
• What else have you learnt?

Key techniques to improve
your reading speed
• Most of us read a lot slower than we could,
often as a result of how we were taught to read
in the first place.
• Once you know about the mechanical
processes involved in reading, you will find it
easier to increase your reading speed.
• Let’s have a look.


Fixation, back-skipping and
regression
• If you carefully watch a person’s eyes as they
are reading, you will see that their eyes make a
series of rapid stop/start movements across
the page.
• This is because the eye can only focus when
relatively stationary and so it jumps from word
to word, stopping at each. This is known as
fixation.


• Most of us have the (often unconscious)
habit of back-skipping, which is letting
our eyes jump back to words that we have
already read.
• Regression is a more conscious habit; it
involves re-reading words, sentences or
even whole paragraphs, because we think
that we have not understood them.
• So, how to fix all these? Turn to next
slide!

• Try to focus on groups of words, rather than single
words at a time.
• Force yourself to keep moving forward through the
text, avoiding back-skipping and regression; it is not
necessary to understand every single word in a
document in order to understand the key message.
• As you get better at focusing on groups of words, just
concentrate on the middle of lines of text – with
enough practice, this will allow you to read page of
text by moving your eyes smoothly down the centre of
the page without any lateral movement.
• With more practice, you will find that you can read
complete sentences or even whole paragraphs with a
single fixation.

Subvocalisation
• When we are taught to read, we are taught to
read out loud. (So that teachers and parents
can ensure that we are reading). Later on, we
are told to read silently.
• But for most of us, mouths continue to move.
Since our mouths move much slower than eyes,
this ‘subvocalisation’ as it is called, limits our
reading speed.
• A conscious effort will make you getting rid of
this habit.

Skimming
• Skimming refers to reading a piece of text very
rapidly in order to get an overview. It is an
important technique when reading a sizeable
text – books and newspapers, for example.
• When skimming, you are not trying to read or
absorb everything, but picking up the key ideas
through headings, diagrams, highlighted words
and so on.
• But don’t skim, short but important details
such as statistical data.

Scanning
• If you are looking for a telephone number in
the directory, you do the scanning. You try to
ignore everything else, though your eyes look
at them.
• To make effective scanning, learn to look for
specific information which could be a single
word, a phrase or even a particular type of
information.
• If you could scan rapidly, you could also read
rapidly.

MAKING NOTES…..
• Use a full size, blank paper and write the title
of the book in the centre of the page in colour.
Add an image that summarises for you the
essence of the book.
• Around the title of the book, write keywords
that represent the main ideas of the book.
• Join the keywords to the central title.
• Add keywords representing subordinate ideas
and join them to the major keywords.
• Try this method and see the results.

So Efficient Reading is…..
• Slightly faster reading, compared to average
reading speed.
• We learn and understand what we read.
• We are able to re-produce what we read.
• We can skim or scan, when required.
• We can fix longer sentences or even a
paragraph in one go.
• We make notes that could give us a pictorial
representation of the entire theme we have
read.

So Efficient Reading is…..
• Apart from all the above, we
can also ENJOY READING…..


The contents in this
presentation are collected from
various sources in internet.
Thanks to the unknown
friends.


GLOBALedge Training Academy
9443498027
http://globaledge5.wordpress.com
http://smartstudents.wordpress.com
http://effectivecontent.wordpress.com

e-mail: geta.erode@gmail.com


Efficient Reading

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