Have your San Diego College professors forgotten what it’s like to be a student? Have they forgotten that an assignment to understand 30 pages of an in-depth explanation of Thermodynamics by tomorrow isn’t possible, especially since you have another 30 pages to understand in Physics and a ten page paper due at the same time?

1. The Problem with Speed Reading in College
Have your San Diego College professors forgotten what it’s like to be a student? Have they forgotten
that an assignment to understand 30 pages of an in-depth explanation of Thermodynamics by tomorrow
isn’t possible, especially since you have another 30 pages to understand in Physics and a ten page paper
due at the same time?
It’s like the professors believe that their class is the only one you’re taking. If they want you to
understand a concept, that’s fine, but why not make the content a little easier to grasp than 30 pages?
However unfair the system though, there’s not time to fix the assignment now, you just have to buckle
down and do it. It’s now that you wish you could speed read through the material.
You’ve heard about the people that can read through a page or two in a matter of seconds and
remember everything. Almost longingly you wish you had that skill yourself.
Speed Read
What if you could speed read
through your material? With an
already busy schedule, you could
finally get to bed at a decent time
again.
The idea brings you comfort, now
you just need to figure out how to
do it. As great as these dreams are,
speed reading isn’t the answer you
are looking for.
Although it’s true that some people
can read a page in a second or two,
they didn’t nearly get all the
important content they read.
Speed reading is glancing over the page, not catching every word along the way.
A well-practiced reader will be able to pick up many of the keywords in a glance and put the puzzle
together briefly. Hence, they can walk away with a general idea of what happened.
They don’t see every word, nor analyze ever complex sentence. That type of reading is great for reading
a newspaper, book, or ad, but it does not help you read the harder texts.

2. Careful inspection
Textbook reading requires the careful inspection of every sentence to truly grasp the concept. You
would come away from the read with a very shallow understanding of the concepts—one that won’t
guarantee you the grade you’re looking for on assignments.
Hence, learning to speed read will not replace the in-depth study that you need to truly understand the
finer points of 30 pages of Thermodynamics. You’ll do much better with the slower read.
That’s not to say that speed reading doesn’t have its place in your studies. A great technique is to quickly
scan every page of the text.
Search for keywords and try coming up with the general idea of what you will be studying. It will make
you ask questions about the reading, aiding your focus later.
Bigger Picture
With that bigger picture in mind, read through
the chapter carefully to fill in all the blanks and
answer the questions. You can use a speed
read afterwards to review.
With three reads under your belt, you’re much
more likely to understand the finer points for
your class tomorrow. So although speed
reading isn’t the answer for getting through
the material quickly, it is the answer to help
you learn it more thoroughly.
San Diego College professors haven’t forgotten
what it’s like to be a student. They just have a limited amount of time to give you the education the
world expects.
They still want you to succeed and graduate from their San Diego College with good grades. Tools like
speed reading will help you accomplish you take something away from the class.
Photo Credit: Ibjorn, gεввε