When a person first starts taking college classes, they may find themselves falling behind faster than they dreamed possible. As a result, before you even start your first day, it will be of benefit to take the speed reading comprehension test. This will give you some ideas about your current reading skills, as well as how to improve. In addition, a speed reading comprehension test will give you an opportunity to keep your skills in good order for the rest of your life. At the very least, if you take one speed reading comprehension test from time to time, you will know when you need to start practicing again.

Regardless of your education level, the speed reading comprehension test can help you get better grades. If you are able to master written information, it will be much easier to utilize your main source of knowledge. Alternatively, when a person does not make use of a speed reading comprehension test, they may never find out why they are having such a hard time learning. In fact, this problem can easily plague a person for the rest of their life. Even after a person has been in a job for many years, they may not be able to read and comprehend fast enough to do their job as efficiently as possible.

Speed reading comprehension test results will help with personal achievement of the following educational goals:

o Isolate comprehension issues that prevent you from getting the most out of your textbooks.
o Read faster so that personal time can be used to work with other enrichment resources.
o Do better on written exams that require detailed analysis of questions.
o Reduce the risk of reading passages wrong, or wasting too much time trying to understand them.
o Ensure that personal reading an comprehension skills stay at an ideal level for the rest of your life.
o Enjoy obtaining a degree that includes notation of high honors.

Speed reading exercises have been most valuable to students, teachers and even top executives in improving comprehension. Unfortunately, not everyone is privy to these techniques.

Seeing as you are reading this article now, I have to congratulate you for making it this far. Acknowledging the need to improve one’s reading speed is the first step to achieving a lot of great things.

Read on to find out which speed reading exercises work best for you.

Speed Reading Exercise # 1: Point and Read

The first exercise is nothing out of the ordinary. All you need to do is choose a book. Start with something fairly simple. Get a timer, too, so you can track how long it takes you to read it.

Now, as you read the text, let your finger guide you through the sentences. Once you get comfortable, increase the speed with which your finger moves.

Doing this helps your brain process the text faster and in turn, finish the book faster. You might be surprised at how much slower you read without your finger guiding you along.

Speed Reading Exercise # 2: Skimming the Material

Skimming the text allows you to have better comprehension of the text compared to someone who dove right into the first paragraph.

It helps you to spot key points which tell you right away what the material is all about. Reading the title and the subtitle also gives you clues as to what you’re about to feed your mind.

It sounds ridiculously simple, but a lot of people who dive right in often end up dazed and confused. In the end, what have they really understood from what they have read?

Speed Reading Exercise # 3: Practicing Speed Reading

There is no such thing as a perfect reading speed; however, practice at least helps you get faster with every book.

By now, you probably know how long it will take you to finish a certain book of a particular number of words. By continuously measuring your words per minute, you’re able to detect progress; or in some cases, stagnancy in your techniques.

If you’re not improving, then you at least know you’re doing something wrong. If you are increasing your reading speed, then you are assured of being on the right track.

Speed reading exercises have been helping people climb their way to success. It may sound like such an inconsequential thing; but remember that it’s the small things that really make a difference in this world.

As Peter was learning his new skill, he realized he could now read more books and magazines in less time than it previously took. He knew he was getting better and he wanted to become a better reader, but he also had other interests that occupied his time. He had friends and family he enjoyed spending time with and he liked to watch television. He also was active in sports. He would continue reading his speed reading book and felt empowered every time he learned something new or practiced a drill. He continued taking notes.

Speed reading study notes

1. Reduce fixations. Look at the word and move on, don’t fixate on each word.
2. Look at two or three words at a time. Better yet, look at phrases or thoughts.
3. Read with a purpose. If your mind knows the reason you are reading, it will detect and recognize the words and meaning much better.

Peter enjoyed reading biographies, especially of people who were successful at something. He would look for reasons why they were successful and try to apply them to his own life. He would search out these secrets of success and apply them to his speed reading.

He learned early on about the power of setting goals and having a clearly defined purpose and goal for achieving something. He learned that it was not only important to have a plan, but it was equally important to put that plan into action. He realized that his ambitions were not just for the here and now, like a star athlete in school who only has cherished memories for the rest of his life, but he was developing skills that would only get better with time and truly help add value to his life in many different areas.

Some of the traits or success secrets that Peter learned about and would apply to his speed reading endeavors were desire, faith, focus, and practice. He knew he had the desire, but he learned that the people who become the very best in their respective fields had a burning desire to be the ultimate best they can be in their chosen field. With desire comes the decision to do what it takes to become the best. He had faith and believed he would be able to increase his current reading speed and comprehension. Even though he was busy in other areas of his life, he would focus on his pursuit to be a speed reader.

He set goals and would read them daily, and this would reinforce his desire and his faith. He made the decision to practice every day. Soon his practice would become a labor of love. He learned that reading fast or just speed reading was not practicing. From reading his speed reading book he learned certain drills and exercises to do. He would take notes and keep track of his progress and write down his words per minute (WPM). The more he improved, the more enjoyment he got out of his newfound skill. He was not only able to read more books, magazines and newspapers, but he also had a high confidence level. This higher confidence level and the results he was seeing would fuel his desire, faith and focus even more.

When speed reading software packages are used the very first time, it could be difficult to understand in terms of where to start using it. Almost all of the programs around have teaching for brand new users. Due to this fact an individual will not have difficulties when beginning to use the application.You may find various ways utilized by different software to obtain the goals of the training. Interestingly, all software programs are based on the comparable strategies.

The first idea which really should be mastered by any completely new speed reader is the elimination of bad reading practices. Is going to be very unlikely for you to master new reading habits without discarding the undesirable ones. As soon as you build up your reading behavior, you will notice that you are in a situation to read a lot quicker than you are familiar with.

The next stage would be actual instruction. Do not ever fight to understand and memorize what you are actually reading. Your first goal needs to be the maximization of one’s reading speed. It is suggested by a lot of industry experts that men and women should train on their reading speed for a minimum of a month. This time can be increased if necessary, before moving on to prepare your brain to understand the content that has been read at a high speed.

The training makes you become accustomed to fast reading. With continued training, it will become painless and natural so that will probably be like an everyday behavior. Once you make some progress in the instruction, you should continue with it until you master it entirely and turns into a permanent aspect of your actions. The next phase will be to recognize the material you have read at speedy pace. Any speed reading software programs worth your hard earned dollars should provide you with this. It’s best to examine the software prior to purchasing, whether it possesses this important factor. It will take you approximately thirty days to be able to understand what you read at elevated pace. If you want to do well in this level, you must have gained high reading speed in the last stage.

Some software programs can assist you to train for memory and retention. Unfortunately, this is simply not typical in all speed reading computer software. In case yours does not cover this part of the instruction, you will have to take separate training that can help you in memory improvement. As an alternative, you can use the online world to train your mind in relation to speed reading. After each level of instruction you will discover tests that ought to be taken. It’s important to take the test because the system will only check the level as fully complete once the test is taken. Exams could be taken privately for training. The tests are necessary as they help in determining how well you’re developing with the training.

Speed reading software can be used for different levels regardless of how complex they could be. However, the reading materials available need to be properly combined with the relevant level of training. When deciding on your software, make certain it is supported on the PC that you’ll be using. You’ll be required to spare just a few minutes of your time daily in an effort to understand fully just how the speed reading software performs.

I am going to show you how to increase the speed of your punching to a lighting fast level by using a few simple tricks that almost anyone can master. Punching speed is a critical component of punching power, and it must be mastered in order to bring your strikes to the next level.

Here are a few tips that you can use to increase you punching speed in a short period of time:

1. Practice shadow boxing with a pair of hand weights. Perform as many punches as you can until you get too fatigued and start to lose good form. Your muscles will get used to punching with the additional weight, and once removed, your speed will increase right away. Do this at least once or twice a week, increasing the weight as you progress. Also a good arm workout as an added bonus.

2. Use a makiwara for punching training. The makiwara board will give you a small target to get used to punching. Not only is this the best way to toughen up your hands, because you are punching a hard surface with bare knuckles as opposed to a bag, but you can also use it for speed drills. Shifting your body weight and moving back and forth, targeting the makiwara.

3. Practice breaking suspended boards. Either have a partner hold a board with just two fingers, suspend the board by a rope, or you can even throw the board up in the air. The only way to break a board this way is with tons of speed. It can easily be done, but you must think of striking all the way through the board, and with no hesitation or the board will just go flying without breaking. Do this outdoors or in a gym with a lot of room and no bystanders.

We live in a world where the phrase “the faster the better” dominates. Everything has become instant, from food to messaging. We are no longer spending time for useless things.

In the age of over information – where every data we need is available by just a few clicks in the keyboard- what we need is how to sift through the data overload as fast as we can while only retaining what is essential to help us.

This is why teaching your child to learn speed reading is important – it will improve her learning and thinking abilities while giving her all the information that she needs at the shortest possible time.

Maria Teresa Calderon is known as the World’s Fastest Reader. She is able to read 80,000 words per minute and she comprehends 100% the material. Other well-known speed readers are J.F. Kennedy who can read 6,000 words per minute; John Stuart Mill, with 37,000 words per minute; and Theodore Roosevelt, who was able to glance at a page and ascertain its content correctly.

Benefits of speed reading

Speed reading helps your child to get as much information in a shorter span of time. This is crucial given the many school projects and homework she had to finish every day. If she learned to review as many reading materials and books as it’s possible in a short time span, then this will boost her chances of acing her exams. The more she speed reads, the better she will be in keeping up with such pace.

The difference between speed readers and non-speed readers is that the first ones will read through the pages and get as much material as they need. The non-speed readers will slog through every page and they’ll spend a lot of time just ruminating on what they just read.

Speed reading also helps when it comes to writing term papers as they’re capable of summarizing a long text and condense it to five-graf digest. This is because a child who can speed read can get the essence of the material, condense it, and write it in just a few minutes..

Thanks to their capacity, speed readers gain enough time for themselves, whether it’s for their school work or other hobbies.

Book lovers are speed readers

Given the many benefits of speed reading, it’s indeed advisable that you help in developing your child’s capacity to read fast.

There’s only one way to develop speed readers – and that is to inculcate the love of reading in your child. Speed readers can read and absorb the information easily because they love to read. They read because they want to, and not because they have to. It is their passion for reading that “teaches” them how to speed read.

The more you encourage your child to read, the more she learns how to speed read. So give her books as a treat. Instead of wasting time in shopping malls, spend your weekends going to bookstores and libraries where you can help her choose books that she can bring home and enjoy. Encourage your child to join a book club in school.

Best of all, set a good example and show your child that you yourself is a bibliophile. If your child sees that you enjoy and value a good book, she will emulate it and treat books and reading as highly as you do.

Why Efficient and Effective Reading Skills are Critical in the Info Age

The Information Age is a boon to any businessman, entrepreneur or anyone wanting to get ahead in life. Information is unrestricted and on demand. The downside is that too much information becomes available and sifting through everything to find “the solution” becomes a monumental task. It’s for this very reason that many have successfully turned to speed reading as the best and most efficient way to stay ahead.

What exactly is this phenomenal skill called speed reading and how does it work?

“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

– John Wooden, legendary American basketball coach

The Lies!

Perhaps a peek into why everyone isn’t a speed reader is a good place to start. Despite the obvious benefits of speed reading, people give all sorts of reasons and excuses as to why speed reading won’t or can’t work for them. For example:

o Speed reading is too tough to master

o I’m too young / I’m too old

o I don’t believe speed reading works

o Comprehension and retention drops with faster reading

o Every word is important, the book must be read from cover to cover

The Truth!

The truth is that these reasons have not withstood the scrutiny of testing. Instead, since the first formal speed reading course was offered in 1925 by Syracuse University in the USA, research and studies of the brain and reading have provided very interesting results – all of which run contrary to the popular reasons and excuses for not being a speed reader. What is known today about reading and the eye-brain connection says that:

o There is no age limit for those who want to learn read faster. If you know how to read and are still able to read, you can speed read!

o Between 50 and 80% of words in any written material are not necessary. Readers can understand the meaning of the book even if these words are taken out. Examples of such words are “a”, “an”, “the”, “and”, “so”, “these”.

o Similarly, not every paragraph is important, and not all chapters are essentially reading for comprehension. In other words, chunks can be skipped with no loss in understanding and comprehension.

o The human eye and mind can read several words at a glance and not just one word at a time.

o Saying the words out loud, called vocalizing, slows reading down as the brain understands audible words at a maximum rate of 250 words per minute, although clusters of words can be visually understood at a rate of 2000 words per minute

The Need for Speed (or ways to slow you down)

What really slows a reader down when using normal reading habits? The most heinous crimes are:

Reading aimlessly. Without a clearly stated purpose, the brain will not work efficiently and will unconsciously command the eyes to slow down and look for words and phrases that appear to give a meaning and purpose for reading. It’s the same as going for a holiday without knowing the final destination!

Vocalizing. Saying the words out loud slows reading to a maximum of 250 words per minute as that’s how fast the brain can understand the spoken word.

Regression. Instead of constantly moving forward when reading, many are guilty of reading and re-reading words, sentences or paragraphs because they “didn’t get it” the first time through. Reading and re-reading slows down the entire reading process and studies have shown that re-reading has no significant effect on understanding or comprehension. So why bother? Onward and forward please!

Reading one-word-at-a-time. This is how kids learnt to read and many adults now fear that skipping words leads to poor comprehension, and so every word must savored, cherished and honored! But as mentioned earlier, a human’s eyes and brains can grab chunks of words in a single eye sweep across the sentence without compromising on comprehension. So why settle for less?

“Instead of giving myself reasons why I can’t, I give myself reasons why I can.”

– Unknown Author

The Secrets to Speed Reading

Using a very simple yet effective 3 step plan, it’s off to the races with speed reading! The 3 steps are:

Step 1 – Relax. Research into the brain has concluded that the mind works best when in a state of relaxed attentiveness. Anyone who has swung a golf club at that little innocent white ball will know this all too well! In the case of speed reading, a tense mind leads to tense eye muscles and an agitated brain, which in turn leads to a very distracted brain with a reduced flow of information from the eye to the brain. To enter a state of relaxed attentiveness is simple. Start by closing your eyes, take a few deep breaths and say the words “I’m relaxed now”. And smile! Repeat these steps a few times until relaxation rushes through the body. It’s that easy.

Step 2 – Prepare. This is the same as warming up before exercising and begin by asking the question, “Why am I reading this book?” Is it for information? To answer a specific question? As research material? Maybe just for fun! The point is that the brain produces miraculous results when it knows what it’s supposed to do! Imagine looking for a specific location in a street directory but not knowing where you are and where you want to go! Reading is exactly the same.

The second part to the preparation stage is to preview the book by reading all the information on the front and back covers, inside the book jacket, and the table of contents. Although the “just do it” attitude is a wonderful call to action, almost all adults love (or must have in many cases) a frame of reference before starting any task. Previewing a book does this for the brain.

Step 3 – Speed Read. There are so many different methods to speed read, but these three simple steps will create incredible results.

o Keep the mouth and mind silent when reading. Saying the words verbally or mentally serves no useful purpose and only slows down the reading.

o Keep moving forward when reading. If the urge to go backwards creeps in – kill the urge and keep moving forward!

o Use a pacer (a pen, a pencil, or a finger) and push it across each sentence faster than the mouth can verbalize the words. This simple action automatically increases reading speeds and forces the eyes to take bigger gulps of information as the pacer sweeps across. It also prevents vocalizing each word, a habit that’s one of the four deadly sins of slow readers. Using a pacer to read is possibly the easiest way anyone can increase reading speeds immediately, quickly and effectively.

The limits to speed reading – are there any?

There are opposing camps to this question. Keeping in mind that the average person reads at about 200wpm, some reading experts insist the upper limit is 300wpm, some say 900wpm, while others claim the upper limit exceeds 25,000wpm. That’s not a mistake, 25,000wpm or a page a second!

Who’s right? Incredible as it may sound, a technique called PhotoReading allows readers to read in excess of 25,000wpm. Developed in the USA by Paul Scheele in the 1980s, this unique method teaches people how to use the untapped potential of the brain and omnipotent unconscious mind to “photograph” pages at a glance. The information is stored in the unconscious memory, and can be activated or recalled later through a variety of methods. PhotoReading has also proven very useful to people with reading challenges, especially those blessed with the gift of dyslexia. From being labeled “slow” or having a “learning disorder”, PhotoReading allows them to utilize their unique reading and learning styles and flourish.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

– Aristotle

It seems that Aristotle had speed reading in mind when he wrote about the link between habit and excellence! Regardless of whether the reading target is 200 words per minute, 800 words per minute, or PhotoReading speeds of 25,000 words per minute, once the techniques of speed reading are ingrained and become habit, reading excellence is but a delightfully divine byproduct!

This article appeared in the June 2006 BizShanghai Magazine, and July 2006 XL Magazine.

By Jeff Tan

Having a partner in life is important to allow you to experience a better lifestyle. However, there are some occasions wherein individuals cannot find partners due to numerous issues. This is why, more and more individuals are trying speed dating events.

Speed dating is as a matchmaking process of dating systems whose purpose is to encourage individuals to meet new people. Below are some of the reasons why individuals opt for such dating solution.

To meet others in a timely manner

One of the main reasons why individuals try speed dating is to meet others in a timely manner. There are cases when individuals do not have much time in searching for a partner due to obligations at work and at home. Fortunately, by opting for speed dating, individuals can meet new people easily and immediately since most speed date events only last for several minutes. During your meetup individuals can determine if they will pursue for the person or not.

To experience dates in different venues

The next reason why individuals try speed dating is to experience dates in different venues. Surely, organizing a date can be a hard task since you need to look for romantic venues. Luckily, speed dating organizers can provide you with numerous venues for your dates which can make your first meetup memorable.

To reduce expenses in dating

Apart from different venues, organizers of such date events can also help reduce expenses. Surely, when dating, you need to look for the best locations. And, you also need to make sure that you can obtain the best foods and drinks. Apparently, some individuals do not want to spend substantial finances in organizing a date with a stranger. By opting for dating systems, individuals can reduce their expenses easily and properly without compromising their date.

To avoid rejection

This type of dating solutions can also help avoid the feeling of rejection. There are instances when dates can turn into a nightmare most especially if you are rejected. Thankfully, this can be immediately avoided since you can look for other dates from a huge list from reliable dating systems and providers.

To improve social life

Finally, this dating can also help improve your social life. Some individuals opt for such events in order to look and meet new friends. And, this is one of the most ideal place to meet new friends which will allow them to increase their social experience.

These are only some of the reason why individuals now opt for speed date solution from reliable providers.

When learning to speed read, the saying that a little information can be a dangerous thing still applies. Consider the term “eye-span.” Even though I’ve been teaching people from all walks of life how to speed read for 30 years, I have only recently received many questions about it. For new learners coming into my programs, the question keeps coming up early in training. I don’t even use the term in my training. The new learner has read something about it somewhere. There is too much concern for it though.

“Eye-span” is referred to the amount of text someone takes in with the eyes for each stopping, or “fixation” of the eyes. By stating “eye-span,” someone has already been doing some investigating about speed reading. There is much mis-information about the topic. It is true that part of the goal of speed reading is to allow the eyes to take in more for each stop of the eyes (fixation). A traditional linear reader typically takes in one to three words per fixation. That is inefficient when you consider the total area of clear focus the eyes have at normal reading distance. This normal area of sight measures between one to three inches in diameter. Sight is always dimensional – that means there is both a horizontal and vertical field.

The problem of learning to speed read and “eye-span” becomes apparent due to marketing and the fact that many programs try to teach you to widen the horizontal span. In fact many programs, especially speed reading software programs, train way beyond the natural limitation of the sight experience that is about 3 inches using only the horizontal field. These types of training exercises try to stretch that span to six inches or more telling the learner to go straight down the page with one fixation per line, line by line.

Remember I pointed out that sight is dimensional? Try this experiment. Take a page of mostly text that the printed area across measures six to eight inches and has big paragraphs. Now, focus your eyes somewhere in the middle of the text. Lock your eyes still. Take a pen or pencil and draw a circle around how much print you can clearly see. Don’t worry about understanding the text, just focus on clarity of the sight experience, or how much you see. Measure the area. It is probably somewhere between one to three inches in diameter. This is your natural “cone of sight.”

When you speed read, you are trying to move this “cone of sight” across and down the page. However, you don’t want to be concerned by how many words you are seeing. You want your mind to search out meaning from the text. However, without training the mind to respond and comprehend with these words appearing out of order, it will be quite frustrating because you do not comprehend.

Please know that you can not read if you do not comprehend. Comprehension is the key. Comprehension is getting meaning from the print. Too often I get learners who say they learned to go through material at 1500-2500 words per minute, but they don’t understand. They have gone through the visual training, but not the cognitive training, or comprehension.

With this focus on “eye-span” the learner gets too concerned over the technical aspects of the eyes, or mechanics, and forgets about the meaning of the text. The mind gets overloaded because there is competition for what the mind is doing. You can’t comprehend if you’re so focused on the technical aspects of what the eyes are doing. So forget about what your eyes are doing. Push for the meaning!

For all our years of teaching speed reading, we teach learners to open that 1-3 inches in diameter and search for idea chunks, or meaningful groups of words. It is not about “word groups,” “word clusters,” or the number of words that is important. It is about stopping the eyes on “meaning groups.” Speed Reading is a process by which the reader is searching for meaning from the print in a more efficient manner. Eye-span only plays a part of the reading process, but gets nearly all the attention in most speed reading training.

Have you ever been to a speed dating event? If you have you’ll understand the concept of speed networking.

At a speed dating event you get to meet an awful lot of people in a very short space of time and the idea is that first impressions count, if you hit it off with someone and feel that you have things in common then you can meet up again later and take more time to build a relationship.

Speed networking is the business equivalent in that you a given a set period of time (2 or 3 minutes for example) to make initial contact with other business people. Just enough time to exchange basic information about your business and the service that you offer as opposed to an in depth discussion

The positive points about speed networking are that you get the opportunity to meet and exchange business cards with a relatively large number of other business people and at the same the time limit forces you to move on and eliminate the possibility of being stuck talking to the same person for a whole event.

For me, there must also be an informal networking session at the end of the event where you can take time to meet again with other people that you felt you were building a rapport with. In this way you can start the relationship building process rather than it just having finished with the exchange of a business card.

In these types of event it’s vital to have mastered the art of effective use of business cards. When you finish a session you may well have a pile of cards and find it difficult to be able to put a face to the card at a later date. This is one reason why my business networking tips below are essential to making the most of speed networking and speed dating alike.

1. Before you decide to attend speed business networking events take time to understand the format. Is it all speed networking or is there free networking time too? If you understand the format you’ll go better prepared and make more of the event.

2. Part of the above is about understanding how much time you have with every other person. If it’s short then you really need to have a well practiced and fine tuned sixty seconds presentation. If you’ve got a bit longer you can maybe afford to go a little more in depth.

3. You may be required to follow a set agenda in your meetings such as your name, your business sector etc etc. Knowing this in advance will help you practice the right subject matter prior to the event.

4. Speed networking when there is a fixed agenda is a very comfortable way to meet new people so take time to identify those people that you don’t already know.

5. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to give your pitch, let the other person talk first, in this way if there are any “common areas” that you want to exploit, you can then adapt your pitch to suit.

6. Make good use of business cards. When you exchange cards take time to read aloud what is on the other person’s card. The other person will see this as interest on your part but most importantly it will help you remember the face and the name at a later date. You can also use the business card to make notes. This is an important point when designing your own cards – make sure that the background is a light colour so that anyone can make notes on your card.

7. Considering point 6 – don’t forget your business cards and a pen!

8. Don’t loose time searching through business cards to find your own. Make sure that you have a place for those that you have collected and for your own. I use two separate pockets in my jacket or coat.

9. Finally, if you feel you have something more to say to someone and that there could be a synergy – make it clear! Now is not the time for polite conversation, be direct and let them know that you would like to have a further meeting and propose a date and time.