Training reading is a bit tricky act of balancing. If you fail the balancing act, you may generate bad habits that are hard to change.
Speed.
The first thing to train in speedreading is obviously speed. Reading speed typically does not increase gradually, but in quantum leaps and occasional regressions. Do not be alarmed either way. Push your progress patiently. Do not strive for changes too large, but do not stagnate.
Retention.
It is important to have high retention. Retention below 80% is not good for most applications. Occasionally you need to be able to get near 100% retention at low speed (memorization) and very high speed at low retention (skimming/scanning). Most of the time you would prefer to slow down your reading speed until your retention is in the sweet spot.
Strain.
It is important not to strain your eyes and brain at any point. The students who push too hard get burned out and lose many weeks to regain training momentum.
Focus.
It is important to train all skills and not jus tone skill you decide is most important. If your skills are not balanced, you will need to work significantly harder.
Texts.
Some texts are just not suited for speedreading. Do not speedread texts that are hard to understand, too short, full with numbers you need, stressful, uninformative etc. Tech and business blogs are usually highly suitable for speedreading.
Typical progress.
- Before subvocalization suppression: read 250 and try to improve retention till you get 90%.
- Suppress vocalization until you reach ~450 wpm. Retention will drop.
- Do no try to read faster! Patiently work on retention till you get back to 90%. Will take several weeks.
- Increase your visual angle. Learn saccades. With visual angle of 9 words increase your reading speed. Get 800wpm.
- Again increase retention and stop at 80% retentions.
- Check full integration of preread-read-analyze cycle until it becomes natural. When you master skimming and scanning you will get 1200 wpm at 80% retention
- At that point, you need to contact Anna for qualification test and see if you are eligible for advanced training.
If you train speedreading in right balanced way, your comprehension quality and reading speed increase simultaneously and you do not get tired.
Speed.
Interesting read. I do have one question reading the Typical Progress you suggested. I’ve checked my speed and it is ~180 wpm. Do you suggest to improve it before taking this course, and if yes how?
If you read below the average speed, you can still take the course. Your results will be as good as any. Just be prepared to work harder.