Occasionally I invite a guest blogger to share their insights on effective reading because I think it important you get a balanced perspective on how to develop this important skill.

In this post, Tiffany Davis shares here thoughts on how important it is for you to keep practicing your reading.

I must say she does have a good point and makes it very well too.

Have a read of this and let me know what you think.

Over to you Tiffany…….

Enhance Your Reading

Most people who suffer from reading problems or a lack of retaining what they read, do so because they are out of the practice of reading. 

Adding a healthy collection of books to your library will deliver the necessary skills without any additional help. 

While you could add countless numbers of books to your library from your local Barnes and Noble, the quality of the book is what will further your reading skills and allow you to gain an enhanced vocabulary as well.

Most “classic” books will help you delve into comprehensive reading, due to the language with which they were written (referring to books published before 1920). These authors wrote in a different time period, allowing you as a reader to transfer yourself into the colloquial aspects of each century. 

Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters, and Dostoevsky will surely require a great amount of concentration, but making your way through these classically historical novels will increase not only your reading skills, but your knowledge of history in general. 

Many classic books go unread by modern society as there is less and less emphasis put on retaining literature. 

English lessons and lectures fall on deaf ears as many in the younger generation increasingly rely on technology to get through life; many believe there is no need for these types of books in a modern bookstore when there are much easier books to get through like the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers. 

However, timeless classics like A Tale of Two Cities remains largely underrepresented in this time, and it is novels like this which can help to further your reading comprehension.

While many of these works of literature may take weeks for you to complete, it is important that you truly focus on the messages which each novel contains. 

Your knowledge of literature should not end once you graduate college; this is how your reading skills deteriorate. By divulging yourself with higher-tiered books, you will triple your vocabulary in weeks as well as train your mind to be able to focus on the reading material at hand. 

A daily dose of magazine articles will not satiate your reading comprehension for a few weeks; rather, you need to ensure that you are reading books at a proper level which will allow you to absorb much of the writing style. 

While it seems pointless to read in a day in which there are books on CD and most classic literary works have movies, it is an important pastime that people have been doing for centuries. 

It was not that long ago when reading was seen to be a feat accomplished only by the privileged few, and we should take advantage of the fact that it is readily available to us all now. 

We additionally need to ensure that reading this type of literature does not become lost between generations; it needs to be kept alive and this can only be achieved through interest by the general public to preserve this type of reading ability. 

This post was contributed by Tiffany Davis, who writes about online bachelors degree. She welcomes your feedback at TiffanyMDavis82 at gmail.com

One of the really interesting issues I encounter when I am sharing the concept of effective reading is the beliefs people have about what that really means.

When I first work with a potential client, or even when working with a group for the first time, I tend to start using the term speed reading because it is a concept they they have heard of and so it is a good mutual starting point.

Invariably when working with these people, it is the term on their mind when they decided to bring me in.

But the problem with "Speed Reading" is that it is a one dimensional term that is completely misunderstood by the average person on the street.

Many people do not believe they have the capacity or ability to read faster because if they had, they already would be…right?

They have many years of reference (their current age minus 5 assuming that is the age they started to learn to read at) of reading in a particular way.

Not only is that a well established habit and pattern of behaviour, but it is also a firm belief that their way is "normal".

This is understandable and part of my task is to explain to them that whilst their experience of reading is "normal" it is not "natural" (which is a brilliant point made famous by Tony Buzan the originator of the Mind Map).

They assume that reading faster will mean they will lose comprehension.

Well I suppose if they are already doing something quite badly (but don't realise it) then doing it faster will make things worse.

This is why the term "Speed Reading" is a dangerous term to use (perhaps I should stop using that….mmm there's a thought).

In order to help people become more effective readers we have to do several things:

• Get rid of the old bad habits holding the average reader back
• Develop some new techniques in the way we read to increase the rate we process words and actually increase the level of comprehension
• Shift from the one dimensional approach to reading to a multi-dimensional range of strategies for knowledge acquisition

It is as radical as moving from using an abacus to perform calculations to switching to a computer to process and handle data and knowledge.

So it is not just about reading faster which will inevitably happen when you become an effective reader, it is about doing things differently to get a far more effective result much faster.

Whilst I can take your reading speed and increase it by 100%, 200%, 300% and more, the most dramatic impact of doing things differently will be the impact of the filtering and rapid location strategies to get you to the right information before you even need to begin what people would call "Speed Reading".

So effective reading is not about being able to read everything you have to read right now in the way you do right now but faster.

No being an effective reader is taking what you have to read now, cutting through the 80% of irrelevant material in a fraction of the time and then reading that 20% far more effectively (which includes not only faster but with better understanding and recall).

And it is just about doing a few things differently.

This week I ran a session called "How to Read Faster and Remember More" at a big three day events industry exhibition at Earls Court in London.

It went very well and as usual I had loads of great questions at the end.

One of these questions was about how to improve levels of concentration because a big factor that gets in the way of most people being more effective readers is that of concentration.

I am sure you have had the experience of reading something, getting to the bottom of the page and not being able to remember a thing about what you have read.

Well whilst you might think it is your memory, it is your concentration that wanders off whilst you are reading.

So the question I was asked was "How do you improve your levels of concentration when you are reading?"

Well the first thing you should realise is that wavering concentration whilst reading is usually because you are reading TOO SLOWLY!

Yes it is because you are not reading fast enough to engage your brain sufficiently for it not to wander off and think of something else.

Think about this - you cross a deserted street you know well then your attention and focus levels are going to significantly different than when crossing a very busy street with multiple lanes of fast traffic especially if there are lots of taxi drivers around.

Of course the danger here heightens the need to pay attention, but I hope you will see the relevance on the analogy - your mind will be more engaged when it has more to do.

Learn to Read Faster and Your Concentration Will Improve Dramatically

It is the same with reading.

The first tip to improving your levels of concentration when you read is to learn to read faster.

Now the next recommendation to help improve your ability to focus and concentrate when you read is that of being very clear on your objectives when you are reading something.

If you get very clear on what you want out of what you are reading, then your brain will look out for written nuggets that will help you achieve your objectives.

This will keep it active because it has something to do - i.e. look for whatever it is that supports your goals and so you are less likely to find yourself day dreaming or thinking of something completely different.

Set Clear Goals To Improve Your Level of Concentration

 Of course a great way to get clear on your objectives is to set goals about what you want from the reading material.

If you write these goals down, then that simple act will programme your mind to seek out what you are looking for.

Is there a time when it is ok to let your mind wander off?

Absolutely there is.

The guidance I offer here on this blog dedicated to effective reading is mainly targetted at helping people in business to read far better saving them time, increasing their effectiveness and ultimately help them make more money.

That implies that a lack of concetration is not a good thing and in the business context that is generally true.

However there is absolutely nothing wrong with reading some poetry or a good novel in your spare time and allowing the mind to wander after savouring each word - that is beneficial to the brain.

Improve Your Reading Environment and You Improve Your Concentration

 And then the last point about developing higher levels of concentration is a practical one to do with the environment you read in.

It should be commonsense that if you read somewhere with many distractions, or in a place that is physically uncomfortable (or maybe even too comfortable) then you are going to have trouble maintaining your attention.

Finding somewhere conducive to heightened levels of focus, that is physically comfortable and free from distractions will assist you in concentrating on what you have to read.

You can go as far as looking at the chair you sit in, your posture, levels of hydration, time of day etc but really if you use your commonsense you won't go far wrong.

So if you have a way of helping you keep focused to improve your concentration when you read then drop me a line and let me know.

Do you believe you can do something to improve reading speed?

The reason I ask the question is that many people don't believe it.

For too long they have been reading the same way and think that is "normal" and that any attempt to go faster is unnatural and likely to be a waste of time.

Well I want to prove that you can read much faster (and understand what you have read) by having you experience it.

I discovered this free online tool yesterday that gives you the experience of reading much faster than you have probably ever done in your entire life.

I will give you the link to it at the bottom of this post because I want to explain it first and tell you how to get the best out of it.

When you first get there it doesn't look much - just this dialogue box in the centre of some huge white space.

You can do a couple of things with it here:

1.  You can paste some text from a document you have to read into the dialogue box OR

2.  You can enter a URL of a web page you want to read.

I am just going to talk about cutting and pasting text here because when I tried it with the URL of a page from my Michael Tipper site the application took a while to read the navigation links and headings before it got to the meat of the page. 

My advice is to copy and paste if you are going to use it to help you read web pages faster.

So when you have pasted in what you want to read (not sure if there are any document length limitations) all you do is press "ZAP it" and you are then presented with this control panel:

As you can see, you can raise or lower the reading speed - it defaults to 300 words per minute (wpm) which is the average reading speed for anyone who has been through a high school education and has never been on a speed reading training course.

It tells you the current speed that has been set and also the length of the document in words per minute.

A nice touch here would be a read out of how long it expects you to take to read a document that long at that speed.

And of course there is the all important play button which is what you need to click on to get the application started.

And when you do you get this:

The words in your document will be presented to you one at a time above the toolbar at the rate you have set.

You can change the settings of the tool by clicking "settings" at the top right hand side of the page.

Here you can change the number of words presented at a time as well as things like the font, text size and alignment.

I suggest you play around with these to find what suits you the best but for now leave the settings as they are for now as you try it out for the first time.

The experience is amazing and you will be startled at just how much you can understand at reading rates far faster than 300wpm.

I want you to go to this tool and try this out so you can see there is some validity in the claim you can read much faster than you do now with NO loss in comprehension (providing you don't confuse comprehension with memory).

This tool will prove to you that you can at the VERY least double your reading speed just by using the basic settings.

The next stage of course would be to take more than one word in at a time.

Start with 2 then 3 and work up to as many as you are comfortable with.

You might need to reduce the font size so that the width of your groupins stays within your current comfortable width of view.

So find a piece of text you want to go through, copy it and head over to the ZAP it Speed Reading Tool and try it out.

Let me know what you think of the experience by adding a comment below.

I am working with a client in a couple of weeks time helping their key management team deal with the vast amount of data and information they have to process in the course of their activities.

As usual when I work with an organisation I asked the client to poll the team members for their reading challenges.

This does two things for me.

Firstly it allows me to identify specific challenges that I can target at the time of the course.

Secondly it reminds me just how "normal" these people are likely to be.

When you have been helping people become more effective readers for a while, you start to understand that, notwithstanding any medical condition, people's challenges are pretty much the same.

First of all there is the general feeling of overwhelm from having so much stuff to deal with and never feeling like there is sufficient time to process it all.

This is very easy to deal with and is so simple, many people kick themselves when they discover the solutions.

Then there is the very slow rate that most people read at - usually between 250 and 350 words per minute.

Most people don't realise they read slow at all because they are usually unaware they are capable of going any faster - I mean if they could they would already be doing it - surely….

Again this is quite easy to deal with and in just a couple of hours you can double or even triple someone's reading speed (whilst maintaining or even improving comprehension) with some very basic strategies.

Then there are a host of minor problems that are typical because the way we have been taught to read sets up a series of bad habits.

These are also quite simple to address.

Anyway back to my client with whom I am working in a couple of weeks…..here is an extract of some of the challenges these people are facing….:

• "If I am reading a book I feel as though I have to read every single word, including 'a', 'the', 'end', etc. this makes my reading pace slow, taking considerable time to read a book"
• "I have a tendency to scan emails and some documents, which potentially results in a misunderstanding or not remembering the content/context" 
• "Well I find I get myself caught and stuck on words.  Like I can't read past them until I have gone back to read it again".
• "I find that if I feel the content is not relevant, or boring if I am reading a book, I scan or gloss over the page and pick up maybe one or two words in a line. Perhaps I am missing out on vital information but I tend to pick it up again and start reading properly when I think it is relevant"
• "If it is learning reading, I will take time, perhaps too much time to assimilate but if my mind wanders, or if I am distracted in any way, I know I have not taken in what I have read and have to read it again. This is an annoying waste of time. I would like to speed that up"

Do any of those ring true for you?

If they do then understand you are normal and all that is missing is a little bit of knowledge and some practice and these can be banished forever.

If you download my Speed Reading Secrets audio at the top right hand side of the site you can get some ideas on how you can deal with these problems.

So what reading problems do you have?

Is it comprehension, speed, volume or remembering what it is you have read?

Drop me a comment below to let me know and in particular I would like to know the impact they have on your professional (and personal) lives.

I have been speed reading for many years now after my first introduction to it during the first week of my degree course back in 1987.

Over the years as I have learnt more about it, I started teaching it and became quite proficient at not only reading far more effectively, but also showing others how they can do the same.

Until fairly recently my focus on my own technique and what I taught to others was about strategies suitable for paper based material - books, magazines, newspapers, reports etc etc.

With the onset of computers, e mail, pdf reports etc many of these paper based approaches to effective reading had to be adapted slightly to use on screen.

This wasn't a problem because the principles apply wherever and whatever it is we are reading.

Many people, including myself often printed off things to read because we like to "feel" the document it is we are absorbing.

I still do that today and it will always remain an approach I will use when I need to.

Over the years as computers and software developed we have seen more and more examples of speed reading software - applications on our computers to help us read faster.

Until very recently I have not bothered with them as my own approach served me well enough.

But then after a strong recommendation from a colleague I invested in a speed reading software package last week.

I have not explored it fully yet and intend to give it a good and thorough testing - not only to see if it works (which I expect it to), but to see how I can use it to best effect with the variety of reading I have to do.

So if you want to find out more about whether this sort of software is of any use, watch this space because I shall be letting you know what I find.

If you have come across any software to help increase your reading speed (both training tools and specific reading software) then do let me know in the comments section below and I will take a look.

Last year I was approached by Wired Magazine for an interview about Speed Reading and did an interview with journalist Emily Saso.

The article was eventually published in the November 2008 edition.

It was a brilliant conversation and was full of great suggestions and ideas about how to increase your reading speed and become a much more effective reader.

Fortunately I had the sense to arrange to have it recorded and after taking out the unnecessary preamble and a lengthy conversation about the state of a hedgehog (long story) I was left with 36 minutes of sheer speed reading gold.

 In it I covered this (and much much more…) 

• The single biggest thing holding you back from reading faster and what you can do about it  
• Why the United Nations thinks you are not reading fast enough 
• The 4 simple steps to rapidly accelerate your reading speed 
• Why when you get to the bottom of a page you can’t remember a thing you have read
• How to remember much more of what you read (this one is so simple you will be amazed!)

So if you would like to hear this interview and find out how you can increase your reading speed then just go to the home page of this site at http://www.michaelonspeedreading.com/ and download it there.

Subvocalisation is one of the challenges we have to overcome if we are going to learn how to read much faster.

It is a habit we develop when we first learn to read because the teachers (and our parents) need to know we are doing it right.

It is simply saying to ourselves what we are reading as we are reading it.

If you go to my blog post on subvocalisation you will find out more about it there so I won't repeat myself here.

All you need to know is that this habit limits our ability to read to the fastest rate at which we can speak.

As the current world record is 603.32 words in 54.2 seconds set by Fran Capo (which equates to about 667 words per minute) that means your upper limit is going to be well below this.

Without training or the desire to break a world record, the average person has a maximum talking speed of about 400 words per minute.

On most of my speed reading courses, the average reading speed is in the region of 250-300 words per minute when they first walk in the door.

Now this post is not about overcoming that challenge, but looking at how we can use reading aloud to further our own brain development.

For Christmas I was given a Nintendo DS and Dr Kawashima's Brain Training game.

One of the training exercises it recommends is reading out aloud as fast as you can.

The idea is to speak quickly and clearly but do it at the fastest rate possible.

It is quite a challenge - if you push for speed you end up slurring or missing words.

If you go for clarity and correctness, there is an effect on the rate you read.

So there is a balance, but as the Brain Training Game is showing me, you can improve.

According to Dr Kawashima in his annoying little post exercise messages, the activity will stimulate the pre-frontal cortex.

 A quick search on the interweb-pedia-thing tells me that it is a part of the brain thought to be key to short term working memory.

It wasn't however until I tried it that I realised what a good mental workout it was.

So if you want to train your grey cells and don't want to invest in a Nintendo DS, then just find some good quality literature and read it out loud as fast and as clearly as you possibly can.

This won't help you increase your reading speed but you will find your mind stimulated and thoroughly exercised and depending on your choice of reading material, your vocabulary will improve too.

Try it and let me know how you get on.

You could start with this post which from the first paragraph is 488 words in length.

Time yourself and you can work out your reading speed in words per minute - see how close you are to the world record.

I teach people how to become more effective readers all the time.

The strategies are really quite simple and you can divide an effective reading course (or speed reading course if you prefer that description) into three phases:

Phase I - This gets rid of the bad habits we are taught in school that have been slowing us down for years - this alone will dramatically increase your reading speed

Phase II - This is where you learn about sharpening up your reading skills with strategies that can help you take in and comprehend far more words and lines than you ever thought possible - call this Advanced Reading if you like

Phase III - Here you discover filtering strategies to get through much more information at a much higher level before you dip into it with conventional "reading"

I always think the most important part of a speed reading course is this last phase because even if I did not share how to increase reading speed, just being able to filter information to target exactly what it is you really need to read would make a huge difference.

And then I started thinking about all of the effective readers I have had the privilege to speak to over the years I have been fine tuning my skills and the information in the courses I teach.

Pretty much all of these people I had spoken to had one thing in common that set them apart from those struggling with information overwhelm.

As well as being effective readers, they were also effective people.

And what do I mean by "effective people"?

Well each of them were very clear in what it was they wanted from all aspects of their life.

They thought strategically and had a long term view of where they were going both personally and professionally.

The had the personal discipline to focus on one thing at a time until it got done.

They also gathered what they needed, when they needed it and not before.

And probably most of all they were action oriented and extremely decisive.

I found that those personal traits ran through them at every level and surfaced in everything they did.

And this included the way they read and handled information.

I am sure none of them set out to be an effective reader - I mean there are better things to do in life if we are going to be honest with each other.

However by being effective people, whatever they did was done effectively - and this included reading.

• Their CLARITY on what they were trying to achieve helped them decide very quickly whether they needed to read something or not 
• Their STRATEGIC perspective meant they could quickly get an overview of something to assess its relevance and identify which bits (if any) they did need to read 
• Their DISCIPLINE meant that they were not distracted by material that did not serve their purpose 
• Their JUST IN TIME approach to information prevented them from hoarding stuff that might be useful at some point in the future and allowed them to FOCUS on exactly what they needed when they needed it. 
• Their ACTION ORIENTATION  allowed them to take action on what they had read and turn simple information into powerful KNOWLEDGE by its application.

So if you feel overwhelmed by information, drowning in a sea of stuff then before you rush out and buy the "speed reading course pill", take a good look at your own personal effectiveness because I would suggest a solution to your problem is much closer to home…

Let me know how you feel about this with your comments below.

Just recently I worked with a client organisation to help them become more effective readers by teaching them speed reading so they could read faster.

In this short 5 minute video I discuss the biggest problem I encounter when helping people with their reading and what you can do about it:

Improving your reading speed can be life changing if you consider the impact it can have on your productivity, work rate and effectiveness.

If you are like me then you probably have to read a tremendous amount of information every single day as part of your profession.

Sometimes the volume can be quite overwhelming and so having the ability to cut through it all in half, a third or even a quarter of the time is extremely appealing.

I know it was for me when I first encountered the techniques over 20 years ago and the same appears to be true to the many people I have taught these too over the years.

Most People Don't Believe They Can Double Their Reading Speed

Whilst the idea of doubling your reading speed (and more) seems like a great idea, many people simply do not believe it is possible.

Having spent so many years doing something that was drilled into them at school in a particular people think that their reading abilities are "normal" and that anything faster is "abnormal" or certainly unnatural.

My former mentor Tony Buzan likes to say that "normal is not necessarily natural" and what he means by that is as a human race we have settled for far less in our thinking abilities than we are truly capable and we consider this below par performance as "natural".

So when someone like me stands in front of a group of people and promises to show them how they can double their reading speed, as much as they want to have that ability, most have at least a nagging doubt that even if it is possible, it probaby isn't something they can do.

Sometimes it is issues of low self esteem and confidence that create these feelings but generally it is a matter of belief.

Of course the problem is further compounded during a training session because it is necessary to "let go" of the old way and try a newer, more effective way.

Now not only does this feel unnatural and uncomfortable (because it is so different - not because I have them reading upside down doing hand stands!) but initially whilst they are adjusting to the techniques, it feels like their reading abilities have taken a HUGE step back.

Getting Used To Reading At Higher Speeds Feels Uncomfortable At First But Only Because You Are Not Used To It and Not Because You Can't

Pushing through these feelings and letting go of the need to do it in the old way are vital to making the leap to the other side where all of the rewards of being able to read much faster are.

But it is possible and when a group trust the facilitator and try the techniques, pushing past those "normal" beliefs, the results can appear to be truly magical (but in reality are just evidence of what we can all do quite naturally).

Below you will see the table of results from the course mentioned in the video above.

In the left hand column you will see the baseline reading speeds taken at the start of the day. 

The group were invited to read a piece of writing (I think it was an article about the oil industry) for one minute and were instructed to read for "normal comprehension" in that they must read so they understood every word.

There is always an interesting need for clarification at this stage of the day that comprehension does not mean they should be able to remember what they have read (to be able to recall it).

I won't go into it right now but if you go to the post "How Do I Remember What I Read", you will find more about that point there.

So the figures in the left hand column represent the baseline reading speed at the start of the day in words per minute.

After taking that initial test I then put the group through the reading development programme stacking a variety of techniques to increase their reading speed in stages.

The Way To Increase Your Reading Speed Is To Practice The Techniques and Trust

Each technique is explained and then practiced on a variety of reading material so they can get used to it before moving onto the next one.

Then at the end of the day, having exercised their new found reading skills, I test them again by giving them a new peice of writing, similar to the first in style and content  and seeing how many words they can now read.

The important point to note at this stage is that the instructions for this test are exactly the same as for the baseline test done in the morning - they are to read for normal comprehension (see above to remind you of the issues around that).

As you see in the second column of results there is a significant improvement in the reading speed.

The interesting thing about this second reading test is that the group won't have felt any different to the first test - in their minds they probably think they are doing exactly what they did first time round.

The only difference is that after the training and practice they have received their eyes and brain have not only become more efficient and effective, they have adjusted to the faster rate as well.

They key to achieving such remarkable improvements in such a short space of time are of course in part due to the techniques used but more importantly is overcoming the self limiting beliefs that get in the way.

Because if you don't suspend what you believe to be true about reading when you attend one of these courses and trust that it will work (and I can vouch that it does) then it won't matter how good the techniques are because you will always stay at what is a very slow rate (but one that you think is normal!).

So if you want to increase the rate at which you read and have a go at this thing we call "Speed Reading", then understand you CAN radically improve your reading speed but you have to trust that it is possible.

So you might still be sceptical and I understand so if you have any questions about how to increase your reading speed, then just ask them in the comments below.