Written by: Richard Volzke on May 17, 2014

Kaufman, in The First 20 hours:  How to Learn Anything…Fast!, provides a checklist of things that we can do to help ourselves learn a new skill more effectively.  If we follow his recommendations, Kaufman suggests that we may be able to learn a new skill in approximately twenty hours.

• Research the skill and related topics.
• Jump in over your head.
• Identify mental models and mental hooks.
• Imagine the opposite of what you want.
• Talk to practitioners to set expectations.
• Eliminate distractions in your environment.
• Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization.
• Create scaffolds and checklists.
• Make and test predictions.
• Honor your biology.[1]

This week, I took Kaufman’s challenge and focused on learning to speed-read. By learning speed-reading techniques, an average individual can read and absorb up to 400-600 words a minute.  That being said, the focus of speed-reading is not about being able to read fast, rather how to pick out key words and phrases to help one understand the material they are reading.

The first step is to scan the title and table of contents to help quickly identify the main concepts and theme of the material. Once I understand what the book is about and how it is structured, I am able to quickly skim through the book and look for keywords and main ideas.  This provides an “airplane view” of the material.  Sometimes, it is also helpful to make diagram or chart of information gleaned from the book.  Drawing a chart helps the brain to structure difficult concepts or to remember relationships.

The next step involves skimming the book, and pulling out the pertinent information that needs captured. Do not look at each individual word on a page.  Instead, look at the page as a whole, and your mind will see every word on that page within one or two seconds. Compare this to looking at a picture or painting. When you look at a picture, you get a visual image of the story that the artist is telling.  A house is made up of individual parts, such as the roof, windows, door, paint color, etc.  When you look at a picture of a house, the mind doesn’t see these individual parts.  Instead, the mind sees a house.  I always considered looking at pictures and reading books as two different exercises, but in reality they require much of the same mental processes and techniques.

Next, begin a second pass of more in-depth reading; however don’t read word for word. Read above the sentence, looking at the tops of the words and skim in a steady motion.  Glide from left to right and you will discover that you will quickly finish a page or chapter of a book 25% faster.  The concept is that your eye will be able to interpret the word by skimming only the top, allowing your peripheral vision to help. The translation process will be faster than if your eye is required to spend time viewing the entire word.  For this process, I find it helpful to read from a paper copy so that I can write notes.  If I don’t understand something, I mark it quickly in the margin of the book so that I can go back and review more thoroughly.  I also use a pencil or pen to trace my reading path.  This forces my eyes and brain to keep moving forward.

In addition to the steps you take while reading a specific book, it is helpful to complete daily eye exercises.  There are several different eye exercises that can be found online with a basic web search.  By skimming charts with random patterns of letters and numbers, you can more quickly pick up words when you read.

Needless to say, speed-reading is one of the best skills I have learned.  Hopefully, this will improve my ability to more quickly digest all of the reading while I research my dissertation.  As someone with dyslexia, reading at a fast pace is a challenge.  Using both Kaufmann’s techniques and improving my speed and reading comprehension, I can mitigate or offset some of the challenges that I face with my dyslexia.

About the Author

Richard Volzke