Speed reading is a necessary skill set for almost everyone to survive in this age of information overload. Whether you are a student, returning adult student, employee, manager, executive, or business person, reading more efficiently and effectively is a set of techniques that are key to your survival. Here are 8 fatal mistakes to avoid when learning this set of powerful learning tools, and how you can overcome them.
1. Too much focus on speed. All speed reading programs and approaches want you to focus on speeding things up. In the initial stages of developing your skills, this is obviously essential. However, when you want to understand what you are reading, you can only read as fast as your mind can comprehend the material. Learn to distinguish between practicing skills and applying them in the real world.
2. Focus solely on mechanics. The eyes are the mechanical tools that allow you to read, but the brain/mind interprets and understands the material. Too many programs focus exclusively or primarily on eye amplitude training and assume that cognitive or comprehension processing will eventually catch up. Be careful investing your time and money in these types of programs. There has to be a clear path to the comprehension side of speed reading.
3. Hold back. To master speed reading you have to learn to think and perceive print in new ways. Too often, a beginner withdraws because the mind is overloaded with this new perception process. A new learner may increase his reading speed by 100 words per minute or so, but he won’t stop at the speed building part because comprehension is affected initially. This type of new learner wants to understand in the same way that he always has. Actual speed reading doesn’t speed up what you already do. It transforms the way you process information and print it.
4. Inconsistent effort. Learning to master speed reading as a lifelong skill is an easily learnable, but highly complex, set of behaviors. Very often the student will be very excited at first. So life happens. Other priorities take over. The great psychologist William James said that to change our habits, we must commit to the change and allow no exceptions until the new skill is firmly ingrained in our nature (it becomes a habit). You won’t master speed reading if you practice a little one day and then don’t practice again for a week or two. Moving from a new skill to a mastery means working consistently with the skills over a period of time.
When was the last time you tried to change a habit? You succeeded? Did you do it overnight? Or did you have to remind yourself over and over again until the new skill became a habit?
Be careful what the sales page tells you about learning to read fast in 16 minutes. You may be able to learn about it. You will not be able to master it. The key question for you is: Is it worth spending a little time consistently on what most behavioral psychologists will agree takes 30-45 days to change your old habits to new ones?
5. Giving up too soon. We live in a culture of instant gratitude. It seems that almost everything is instantaneous. Unfortunately, you have lifelong reading habits that won’t change overnight. Jumping to conclusions too soon and stopping your training because it “doesn’t work” will keep you where you already are. I’m often asked, “Does that speed reading really work?” My inverted answer is “no”. “That does not work. You work it! Effective speed reading is a systematic approach to handling print. First you learn the system. Then you apply the system. If it relates to this flaw, you should enroll in a program that has one-on-one personalized support for times when you feel like giving up.
6. “Read” without thinking. Again, it is important that the eyes move efficiently, but you must remember that behind the eyes must be your mind. What does your mind do while your eyes move? Learn to activate and move your mind with your eyes. With the right training, you can also learn to move your mind faster. This is a comprehension problem.
7. Expect you to fully understand after one try. Reading comprehension, or understanding the material, is not a one-time event. For very simple things, one exposure may be enough. However, for larger documents, books, manuals, etc. that must be fully understood and retained, thinking that you have to master it in one fell swoop is a myth. In fact, understanding is a process. A process is a systematic approach to achieve a result. Learn to build understanding. Learn and apply the process.
8. The need to be perfect. If you are a person with a low tolerance for frustration, you will never master speed reading. Perfection is an ideal state. As an ideal state, it is questionable whether it can ever be achieved in reality. We can strive for perfection and get closer and closer. Learning is a messy process. We rarely get it the first time. Learning to speed read is the same. As with all learning, we learn a lot about ourselves in the process. Looking back at the challenging things we have mastered, we find that the journey was not a perfect straight path. For those of us who love to learn, the journey was full of personal growth and looking back now was worth it.
If you want to master speed reading skills, commit to the process, get a good teacher/coach to help you through the tough times, and be aware of these fatal mistakes. You’ll discover more than how to speed up reading. You will unlock secrets in your mind that you didn’t even know existed.