Improve your reading skills

I remember it like it was yesterday, all of my cousins, brothers and sisters were outside enjoying the summer. ME!!! I was inside reading a story book that I hated. Why? Because the only way we could go out and play was to finish the story book first. Everyone else had finished reading but me. It was embarrassing and frustrating at the same time. By the time I had finished, everyone was already back inside. The only reason that I was unable to go out and play was that, my reading speed was extremely slow. If you are not happy with your speed of reading, then you know exactly what I am talking about.

There are many different techniques that can help you improve your reading, but not every technique suits everyone. For example, if you are dyslexic, then you need specific trainings to overcome dyslexia and THEN improve the speed. Here are some techniques that one can use, provided that there are no other underlying problems.

- Create a preview image in your brain before you start to read e.g. the main heading, the number of paragraphs, the length of paragraphs and so on.

- Vary your speed as you go along. Slow down if you think you need to concentrate more in order to understand and speed up where things look familiar e.g. generic sentences.

- Do mental and speed reading exercises. You can find lots of them on the internet.

- Read about things that interest you e.g. if you are a romantic, read romantic novels. If you like science fiction, go for that or whatever suits you. If you are interested in what you are reading about, chances of you staying with it are quite high.

- Concentrate of keywords rather than conjunctions.

- In the initial stages, write down what you are reading in the air with your finger. After some time, just put your finger on the alphabets and then eventually words and lines.

- Make what you are reading more interesting by talking to other about and discussing it.

- Don't force yourself. Do what feels comfortable to you. Making reading a burden will make you give it up completely very quickly. For me, the best time to read a book is when I am in the toilet. My wife gets really angry because I tend to spend a lot longer than I am supposed to.

- Always remember, Practice makes permanent. I know the original saying is practice makes perfect, but to me, that really isn't true. Think about it, if you practice doing something day in and day out in the wrong way, you will become perfect in that thing, but will the act be perfect? It certainly will be permanent. You might have to work very hard to make it PERFECT. (just a bit of philosophy from me).

There you go, somethings that you can try to improve your reading. Always remember the ant story. Try, try, try until you succeed. You will only get results if you keep at it. Don’t give up if you don’t see results immediately. Keep at it and you will see benefits sooner than you know.

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