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Benefit 2: You’ll Keep Your Mind Alert. One unexpected benefit of increasing your reading speed is that it can actually give you mental energy as you read. How many times have you tried reading in bed before you fall asleep, only to wake up an hour later with your book still open and see that you have read nothing? Or how many times do you feel yourself growing more and more distracted as you read, forgetting paragraphs immediately after you’ve read them? This doesn’t have to happen. Increasing your speed means making your mind and body more alert, and therefore more likely to keep going
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This means that your mind sees the written letters, thinks about the sounds those letters represent, and then connects these sounds to the meanings. This process is called subvocalization.
This process of subvocalization can actually slow down your reading speed, because you’re trying to pronounce each word in your mind.
Reading silently is easily five to ten times faster than reading out loud.
If you’re hearing the individual sound of every word, that means that you’re making your mind work much too hard; doubling your reading speed will be difficult.
aim is to decrease subvocalization. Since words are directly related to meaning, controlling what you “hear” in your mind means that you can decrease the amount of time it takes to construct meaning.
Again, self-monitoring is the key to determining how largely you are affected by regression.
Remember that sentences, not individual words, have meaning. When your eyes stop, pause or wander, it means that you’re probably trying to derive more meaning out of an individual word rather than out of the sentence’s complete meaning.
One habit at a time – Don’t focus on all of the habits at once: you’ll go crazy and will probably make yourself commit them all even more than you would naturally. Instead, focus only on one at a time.
You don’t need to think about sounds of words! • You don’t need to read every word!
The key is to practice reading at a pace where you simply cannot pronounce words or think about their sounds.
Locate the Most Important Sections of Text. Not all parts of a story or passage are created equally. Very good, very fast readers know that certain sections within texts have the most important information, while other sections have less important information. Naturally, they pay more attention to those sections that contain the most important information.
Titles • Headings • The first sentence(s) in a paragraph • The last sentence(s) in a paragraph • The first paragraph(s) in a passage • The last paragraph(s) in a passage • Sentences with bolded, underlined, or italicized words • Picture captions
Meta-Guiding. This is a fancy sounding word for a simple concept: All you need to do is use your finger, a pointer (like a pencil) or an index card to trace in front of your line of vision as you read.
“Read Phrases Instead of Words”
The real truth, however, is that although these skills can be applied very quickly (in fact, in well under an hour), it does take time to master them.
After determining your current average WPM (see tip #1, above), double it and set that doubled speed as your goal. So, if you’re reading at about 220 words per minute, set your goal at 440 words per minute. With each exercise you do that reveals your speed, compare it to where you started and where you want to end up.
Use Computer Software. There is a wide range of computer programs available which specialize in helping you double your reading speed.

