Objectives

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Part Six Rapid Reading and Comprehension
Objectives   Part Six offers practice in
developing comprehension and increasing reading
rate.
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• If you feel you are reading your college
  assignments
• too slowly or ineffectively,
• factors other than reading speed are probably
  responsible.
• Perhaps you dont know where and how to look for
  main ideas and key supporting details in a
  textbook chapter.
• You may need to work on reading comprehension
  skills and skim reading skills.
• You may need to learn more about study skills
  such as textbook previewing, marking, and
  note-taking.
• You may have to learn to read flexibly. This
  means that you adjust your speed and style of
  reading to accommodate your purpose as well as
  the level of difficulty of the material.

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• There is much more to effective reading than an
  increase in speed alone.
• However, some students do benefit from working to
  improve reading speed.
• Eye reading speed can be increased using the
  following techniques
• Reduce the number of fixations per line. People
  who make 8 stops per line are not reading as
  quickly as those who make 4 stops.
• To read faster, learn to take in several words at
  each stop rather than only one or two.
• This helps reduce the tendency to sub-vocalize
  and to read one word at a time.

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Speed can be increased by reducing the duration
of each pause or stop by increasing the speed of
the return sweep. Speed can be increased by
cutting down on the number of backward eye
movements or regressions. With improved
concentration, the eyes can be made to read with
greater accuracy as well as speed.
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• The key to rapid reading
• Consciously try to read faster.
• Consciously force your eyes to move and work at
  ever higher and higher speeds.
• Rapid reading is
• making your eyes and brain work together to
  process words at a high rate of speed.

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• Keep rapid reading in perspective.
• It is different from slow and leisurely reading,
  in which your purpose is pleasure.
• It is different from skim reading, in which your
  purpose is to locate the main points in an
  article or chapter.
• It is different from the slow study reading you
  do to increase your understanding of a difficult
  selection.
• It is but one of many skills of an effective
  reader, and it is useful at certain times for
  certain reading purposes.
• If your comprehension rate drops even after
  repeated efforts to read quickly, you may
  reasonably decide that rapid reading is not for
  you. You may then focus on developing your
  comprehension skills.