I recently did this, and found out I could read at 830 words per minute. I know a couple of you asked for the "test" I used, so here it is. It's simple to do, all you need is a stopwatch and a calculator, or a paper and pencil. All you have to do is read the following paragraphs, and time how long it takes you. Read at the same speed you normally would, don't try to go fast to get a faster time. ;) When you're done, I'll tell you what to do next. :)
Ready? Set? GO!
"Slow readers are poor readers," says Norman Lewis, author of
How to Read Better and Faster. "A person reads fast because he thinks fast, has good eyesight, a good vocabulary, and a wide background of information. Most persons who read ten times as fast as the plodder absorb much more of what they read than he does."
Lewis, who teaches remedial reading to adults at the College of the City of New York, points out that reading is perhaps the most important skill we ever learn. There is hardly a job that does not require reading. And while less than four percent of American adults cannot read at all, at least 60 percent do not read well.
Millions who read nothing but the comics would fine pleasure and stimulation in magazines and books if their reading habits were improved. A child who does not read reasonably well is doomed to failure in school. Most delinquents have a long record of school failures, beginning with reading troubles.
Exercise is an important part of trying to improve your reading. For a certain time every day make a conscious effort to read a little faster and to see more at each glance. Your eyes see nothing as they are moving along a line of print; it is during the brief pauses they make that they read. The wider your eyes span, the more words you see at once and the faster you read. A good reader makes only two or three stops on an ordinary line of print; a poor reader stops for nearly every word. An excellent reader will see an entire line at once, so that he can read
down a narrow column of type without moving his eyes left to right. That is how Theodore Roosevelt got the reputation of reading a whole page at a glance- an obvious impossibility. He read rapidly down the page, and he knew how to skim, often reading only the key words.
According to Dr. Stella S. Center, head of the New York University Reading Clinic, the chief reading faults are reading one word at a time and turning back to reread. Many of those who read slowly pronounce each word, either aloud or mentally. If you want to find out whether you are vocalizing, touch your lips lightly as you read. If they do not move, try touching your throat over your vocal chords. If they vibrate slightly, you are vocalizing. To keep from vocalizing, try to read easy material faster, so that there is no time to pronounce and, most important, try to keep your mind focused on the author's thought. This is also the best way to keep from regressing. We read efficiently when our minds and imaginations are captured by what we read.
All reading experts agree that a poor vocabulary is a drawback to rapid reading. But don't stop to look up every new word in a dictionary. Keep going, at least to the end of the paragraph. Often the meaning of the word is made clear by the way it is used. If not, it may become clear if you try to figure it out before looking it up. "A large vocabulary," says Norman Lewis, "does not come from looking up long lists of words in a dictionary. It comes from wide reading, from being alert and curious."
The books Lewis recommends for his students' outside reading seem heavy going for slow readers: history and biography, psychology and physiology, mathematics, sociology. "If my students also read whodunits and boy-meets-girl stories, that's fine. It will help them speed up. But one trouble with slow readers is a narrow background of information. Since they have never enjoyed reading, some of them haven't opened a book since their school days. They've missed a lot of facts that other people know. Reading a few solid, factual books will give them a background to build on. The more you know, the faster you read."
Adapting your reading speed to your material is important. If you are studying directions for making a cake or building a shelf, you will take your time in order to be sure that you have every step clearly in mind. On the other hand, if you are reading a "
western," it's no crime to skip elaborate descriptions of mountain scenery and get on with the story. Skimming is not the same as skipping. Skimming- glancing rapidly over a paragraph and picking out the key words - is a secret that enables many professional people to keep up with everything published in their field.
How fast should you read? If you read 225 words a minute, you are reading at about the national average and as well as a sixth-grade child is expected to read his school books. That is not fast enough to make newspaper or magazine reading enjoyable. High school students get into difficulties if they cannot read 300 words a minute, and some college students who read below 350 words a minute will find the going tough. In some jobs even 600 words a minute is too slow, and Dr. Center has had men come to her clinic to improve that rate. They did it too. Lewis reads faster than 800 words a minute, and is still improving. Apparently you can always read faster and better, no matter how well you read. To many of us, it will be challenging to learn that most adults can improve their reading rater at least 35 percent -- by their own efforts.
Stop! Ok, what's your time? Divide the number of minutes into 920 (which is the number of words you have read) and you'll know your rate per minute. For example, I read this is in 1 minute and 6 seconds, so I did : 920 divided by 1.10 and I got 836, or approximately 830. Thus, I read 830 words per minute.
How fast do you read? Let us know! :)
