Learn to Read With Great Speed! Read Online Free PDF Page A

read 192 words per minute – his best results so far.
    He has read all seven parts of "The Chronicles of Narnia" and four other books during the training process. That is more books than 70% of Americans, ages 16 and up, have read in 2012 [2]

My story
    When I started my self-development program, I'd stumbled upon a workbook about speed reading. The author outlined a program there for a massive improvement in the speed of reading within three months, but you were supposed to practice 1-2 hours per day, every day.
    Two hours per day! That's a lot of commitment. About 25% of my available time. And I need that time to commute, to spend with family, to pray, and to learn other skills. Out of the question.
    But I had fresh in my mind all the examples of consistent fruitful efforts from my past, so I gave my 10 minutes philosophy a chance. "I'll only practice fast reading for 10 minutes a day," I decided. Why not? It was just 10 minutes. So, I took that program and modified it by extending each week into 12 weeks.
    The program from the workbook I found starts with exercises eliminating sub-vocalization. I read a lot, so I have plenty of opportunities to practice, but beating rhythmically while reading made me dizzy. Either I didn't understand what I was reading, or I couldn't keep the rhythm. One way or another, the practice was no fun. Nevertheless, I stuck with this exercise for a few weeks.
    The last time I had checked my reading speed was during my university study. I read about 240 words per minute. Since that time, my skills had no chance to improve, as I was reading less rather than more and neglected any training in that area.
    I checked my results after a month from starting my 10-minute practice, and I was blown away! It was 360 words per minute, a 50% progress! One month, 30 short sessions of practice, and I was able to read 50% more books in the same time. Later on, it appeared this result was just coincidence. Reading speed varies from one test to another; it is dependent on the text I'm testing on, my mood, and external circumstances. But still, after six weeks of practice, I read about 340 words per minute, and the progress was impressive.
    You can't even imagine what it meant to me. I'm a reader. I had read thousands of books with my meager 240-words-per-minute speed. Suddenly, I felt like a kid in a candy store when a 50% bargain sale was announced. To get the picture of my state at that moment, try to recall Gollum from the Lord of the Rings, drooling and lisping, “my presssscious.”
    From that moment on, I had no hesitation at all. I've been going through the next stages of the program, without flinching. I used the practice sessions to read some classic books I had never had time for: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey , Clausewitz's On War , Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich , and several others. I am reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations now.
    When it came to the selection skill practices, I used those sessions to read Early to Rise newsletters, which had piled up in my mailbox. I skipped the text looking for the articles or conjunctions, and I was able to get the meaning, by the way.
    My results have regularly been above 360 words per minute for several months. The best results I've gotten was 511 words per minute, and I'm reaching over 400 words quite often.

Conclusion
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    When I read the stories of people who improved their reading skills by 100% within a few weeks , I feel a little dumb. My progress is meager and slow compared to them. But I really practice just 10 minutes a day. I do 90% of my reading on a computer screen; the only pointer I can use, in this case, is a mouse cursor, and it is not the most comfortable tool for this job.
    I'm living proof that a 10-minute practice can be fruitful. I can read more than 50% of what I read a year ago within the same time. I can read 90 minutes a day (including the speed reading practices) and still read the same amount of text that used to take me two