A Common Mistake Most of us Make When Reading a Book

How do we read books? It may seem that there is nothing special in it. We take a book, open it from the first page and read it till the end of it. That is the way most of us do and actually it is an inefficient way to read books. It will result in relatively poor reading speed and low comprehension.

Have you ever watched professional athletes train or compete? No matter if it is basketball, tennis player or weight-lifting, athletes always perform some warm up exercises before training or competition. It probably includes some jogging, bends and stretches etc. It is necessary to get the pulse rate up to a training level, to get the body muscles warm and to stretch them in order to avoid injuries.

But how do we start reading? Most people just take the text and begin to read without any warm-up. Speed reading is to a great extent similar to a sports activity. Reading fast is similar to running fast. In both cases you want to reach the finish with the smallest possible time.

If you want to read fast and also remember what you have read then you should also make a warm-up. In case of speed reading you should preview the texts before starting to read them. It means that you will look through the text at rapid pace and you will get some background information about the text. Later that information helps you to understand the text better and read faster.

Have you ever noticed that it is much easier to read a text on a familiar topic? If you have some prior information about the content of the text then you can read the text faster and you will comprehend better. By making a quick preview you will acquire that kind of information from the text, which allows you to read it faster later.

How to make a preview? First, read the title of the text. Then look through the table of contents (if the text consists of many chapters). If you read the titles of all chapters you will get quite a good idea what the material is about. Next, look the text through at fast pace. Search for words and sentences with larger or bold font. Read them. If you find any tables or figures then take a glance on them. Do not waste too much time on them. Finally, read the introduction and the conclusion of the text or in case of a shorter text or article the first and last paragraph of it. Following these steps send preliminary information to your brain before you have started to read the book.

It does not take much time to do this, but it helps you to significantly boost your reading speed. In addition you will memorize the content of the text much better. So do not make a mistake most of us do that we read the books just from cover to cover without making a preview.