Q&A for How to Learn Speed Reading

Read from further away. Then you won’t need to make that many movements, and you can also take in sentences and even paragraphs at a time.

Probably not. Claiming to be able to read that fast is extremely rare. In the movie, "Rain Man," the title character could read up to 20,000 words a minute. His left eye read the left page, right eye read the right page, but that is something very rare. It is not associated with neurotypical people.

When a person has little or no desire or patience, the willingness to read and improve their reading wanes. If you want to improve, you can.

Yes, it works all the same. However, remembering and understanding each word you read should be top priority as a reader. Make sure that you're reading at your pace, and practicing it deliberately will help you.

Most likely, yes. I can read 376 wpm and English is my second language as well.

In my opinion it will. The more familiar you are with the language, the faster you can read and understand the content; however, it's not only about the language - you can comprehend the material faster if you are familiar with the subject of the text too.

Playing background music will not help in this scenario. Music with lyrics will distract your brain and make it work harder. Your brain will automatically attempt to separate the words that you are reading from those that you are listening to. The same can be said for instrumental music, where the brain will be working to separate the melodies from the words you're reading. It has been scientifically proven that white noise aids in speeding up the functioning of the brain.

Just keep in mind the important phrases, then analyze them. You will most likely make a summary.

No, as long as you can see, your eyesight won't affect your reading speed.

If you quickly scan 50 words per second, 300 words a minute will be no problem. The key is to focus half on understanding and the other is to read whole lines at a time.

Yes, but only if you have you're completely fluent. If you're stumbling over words, speed reading is going to be difficult or impossible.

It can be, but only if you're still absorbing and understanding the words you read. It won't do you any good to read the information quickly if you're not retaining any of it.

Read in the daytime, outside, while drinking, eating or in a public place. Having something to stimulate you or having something else going on around you will help keep you awake.

There are some good tips at the bottom of this page, check them out. They helped me.

Cover words you've already read. Use a card to cover the lines while you're training eye movement. You can also try practicing with a text in a not known language (that is close but is not your native language).

Summarize what you just read at the end of the chapter. If you cannot, then go back and reread it or look up an online summary of that chapter.

The Kindle app has this feature. I'm sure other programs on the app store or online do as well.

It is, if you understand Hindu. Many Hindus can speed-read in less than 12 minutes.

No, age shouldn't affect your reading speed at all, as long as your eyesight is still good. And reading (fast or slow) is a great way to keep your brain fresh and "young."

Probably not, unless, your contacts are smudged or fogged up, they'll actually improve your reading skills, since they improve your vision.

Practice alone makes progress. If the steps above are followed religiously for just a few weeks of time, the desired rate of fluency will be attained. You can't avoid practicing it though, it's a skill and as with any skill, needs to be learned through doing it.

Yes. The older you get, the less flexible your eye muscles will get. This will cause speed reading to become more difficult, especially for those accustomed to reading 500+ wpm.

This should not affect your speed reading. Try to train both eyes to read as well.