“Your brain is like a muscle and with practice your speed and comprehension will both increase.” – M Howard

Most adults read at about 250-300 words per minute (wpm). I used to be a fairly slow reader mainly for fear that when I try to read faster I start to lose comprehension so would have to backtrack wasting even more time. I’ve always had a love for reading but there are only so many hours in a day and although my reading list increased over the years my reading speed had not.

I needed a better strategy than more bookmarks.

Over time I began to bring together various tricks for faster reading, including tips from Tim Ferris (author of The 4 Hour Workweek) and several other sources like Spreeder and ReadingSoft that both have pretty amazing free online speed reading exercises (I have no affiliation with these services).

Putting the above resources together with my own experience, what follows are simple exercises that you can do that will increase your reading speed and comprehension. With practice, you may find your reading speed doubles or even triples (as in my case). My only regret is that I did not learn these amazingly simple techniques much earlier, so now I’d like to share them with you.

Before we get into the exercise, first a little house-keeping. Keep in mind the following four things before you begin the techniques after this section.

Things You Can Do Right Now to Read Faster

1. Stop Talking To Yourself

It’s no coincidence why most people read at about only 200-300 words per minute – it’s the same speed that we speak. When you read the brain often wants to vocalize these words and results in limiting your reading speed to your “talking” speed. Even if you don’t say the words aloud as you read your mind is generally speaking these words silently to yourself, which is the same – it limits your reading speed to your talking speed. Continue reading →