The complete idiot's guide to speed reading
From the Publisher: On your marks, get set, read! Most adults today are working with antiquated skills and ingrained beliefs about their reading abilities, or lack thereof. But with the tips and examples offered in The Complete Idiot's Guid (r) to Speed Reading, getting through a load of must-do rea...
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
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Indianapolis, IN :
Alpha Books,
Ã2008.
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Table of Contents:
- Part 1: Getting Up To Speed With What You Read
- 1: Getting started speed reading
- Minute is all you need
- Documenting your comprehension
- One-minute timing exercise
- What your numbers mean
- 100 to 200 words per minute: slow readers
- 200 to 300 words per minute: average readers
- 300 + words per minute: above-average readers
- 700 + words per minute: the excellent reader
- Shifting your reading speed gears
- Faster reading means more reading done
- Raising your reading speed comfort level
- Road conditions for success
- Learning to let go
- Taking short, frequent breaks
- Reading horizontally and vertically
- Value of comprehension
- Value of background knowledge
- 2: Winning hands down
- Faster reading at your fingertips
- When to use pacers, and when you don't need to
- Some challenges ahead
- Columns: wide or narrow?
- Single finger methods
- Left pointer pull (B)
- Right pointer pull (B)
- Center pointer pull (N)
- Z pattern (N)
- S pattern (N)
- Multiple finger methods
- Long-smooth underline (W)
- Short-smooth underline (W)
- Double pointer pull (B, W)
- Vulcan (N, and some W)
- Point-to-point (B)
- Open hand wiggle (B)
- Card methods
- Blank card
- White card cutout (B)
- Fast page turning
- Results are
- One-minute timing
- 3-2-1 drill
- 3: Peripheral vision and the power of prediction
- What your eyes do when they read
- Remove your blinders
- Power of prediction
- Teach your eyes new tricks
- Left-right exercise
- Cut above
- License plate game
- Squeeze the margins
- Use your hands
- Get rhythm
- Stretch the eyes
- Discipline your eyes exercise
- Rest for tired eyes
- Eye rub
- Palming
- Palming with visualization
- Results are
- 4: Eyes have it
- First things first
- Get ready to run
- Focus on the bigger words
- Meet the key words
- Play with the bigger words
- Grab a chunk and go
- Meet the chunks
- Play with the chunks
- Power of combination
- Results are
- 5: Working on comprehension
- Learn to trust your brain
- Opening the window
- Power of attention
- Practice on the easy material
- Fear of the word not
- Expand your vocabulary
- Broaden your experiences
- Learn to control your speed
- Your environment and your reading
- Speeding up and slowing down
- What about technical material?
- Results are
- Part 2: Get In, Get Out, And Don't Go Back
- 6: Getting ready to get in
- When multi-tasking doesn't work
- Evaluating your current reading habits
- Remembering the why
- Carving out time to read
- What can you read right now?
- Finding more reading time
- Reading when you're tired
- Finding the best place(s) to read
- For businesspeople
- For college students
- Calming the body and mind
- Effects of music
- Keep your eyes on the prize
- Tune out the mental distractions
- Time and page goals
- Take frequent short breaks
- Library
- Start with the end in mind
- Decide on your strategy
- Results are
- 7: Getting in
- Nonfiction, fiction, and your brain
- Reading and your dominant brain
- Fiction versus nonfiction
- Remember why and add what for
- Getting a bird's-eye view
- Where's the meat?
- It's okay to cheat read!
- Focus on the firsts-- Where to look for other clues
- Cheat reading made easy
- Cheat reading fiction
- Approaching technical material
- Results are
- 8: Getting out
- Skimming, scanning, and skipping
- Skimming: a quick filter
- Scanning is for finding the right answer
- Speed reading partners: skimming and scanning
- Skipping: always an option
- Finding the golden nuggets
- Thinking and questioning while you read
- Everyone has an opinion
- Connecting with an author
- Summarize with tellbacks
- Follow the signal words
- Spot the organizational pattern
- Results are
- 9: Don't go back
- How your memory works
- Grab hold of information
- Preserve what you find
- Salvage the memory
- Factors for forgetting
- Ebbinghaus curve of forgetting
- Help the best stand out
- Writing on/in the material
- Use color
- Writing in the margin
- Re-creating the structure
- Taking notes outside the material
- Post-its, dog ears, and tear outs
- Taking notes on fiction
- Results are
- 10: Speed reading books and magazines
- Before you read anything
- Nonfiction books chapters and magazine articles
- Similar but different
- General reading strategies
- My method for speed reading nonfiction books
- Shake hands with your textbooks
- Structures found in nonfiction books
- Speed reading study material
- Speed reading technical material
- Speed reading fiction
- Choose the right book for you
- Keep track of the characters
- Be aware of the basic elements of fiction
- Use speed techniques
- Choose the best place to read
- Results are
- Part 3: Turning Up Your Speed
- 11: What to speed read-and what not to
- Common misconceptions about speed reading
- Speed up or slow down, it's your choice
- What to speed read
- What not to speed read
- Shakespeare slows everyone down
- Thou shalt not speed read (the Bible)
- Speed read poetry? Alas, it is not to be
- Speed read dialogue?-she asked-surely not
- On the fence: technical material
- Your experience dictates
- Results are
- 12: Speed reading on screen
- What's different about reading on screen
- Reading is reading is reading
- Making your on-screen text look good
- Skinny on fonts
- Adapting paper strategies to screen
- Preview your digital documents
- Store your keepers
- Taking notes on-screen
- Avoid getting sucked in
- Hands-free on-screen pacing
- Highlighting pacer
- Scrolling pacer
- Using your cursor as a pacer
- Line-by-line pacers
- Getting your eyes comfortable
- Strategies for going paperless (or at least printing less)
- Speed read just the good stuff
- Results are
- 13: Kick your bad habits, and watch your speed soar
- Daydreaming 101
- Benefits of daydreaming
- Causes of daydreaming
- Bad and the good
- Reducing daydreaming
- Back-skipping 101
- Reducing back-skipping
- Subvocalization 101
- Bad and the good
- Reducing subvocalizing
- Results are
- Part 4: Overload Management
- 14: Embrace your paper reading piles
- Weed your magazines
- Gather all your weeds
- What's their value?
- Get rid of the undesirables
- Weigh your pile to match your time
- My reading pile
- Prioritize your books
- Get a bookcase or two
- Carve out time
- Decide what not to read
- Newspaper reading made easy(er)
- Clippings and more clippings
- Weed to make the information useable
- Find the clip when you want using LATCH
- Even the bills can be appealing
- Results are
- 15: Making your electronic piles inviting
- What's in an electronic pile?
- Embrace your electronic reading pile
- Managing your subscriptions
- Getting started reading e-books
- E-book reader options
- Other E-book resources
- Streamline your on-screen inflow
- E-mail reading made easy(er)
- Better blogging
- Get to know your software
- Results are
- Appendixes
- A: Glossary
- B: Timed reading exercises
- C: Personal progress charts
- D: Calculating your reading speed
- Index.
