10 Days to Faster Reading by Abby Marks Beale

Overview of the Book: What are the Ben­e­fits for Me? Enhance Your Read­ing Speed and Improve Your Reten­tion of Information.

If giv­en the chance to make three wish­es, many would like­ly ask for immense wealth and the abil­i­ty to soar through the skies. How­ev­er, for avid read­ers con­strained by time, one wish might be ded­i­cat­ed to gain­ing the capac­i­ty to read at an extra­or­di­nary pace.

This book sum­ma­ry does not promise super­hu­man read­ing abil­i­ties, yet achiev­ing quick­er and more effec­tive read­ing skills does not require mag­i­cal inter­ven­tion – it involves aban­don­ing unpro­duc­tive habits and mas­ter­ing some techniques.

Ten Days to Quick­er Read­ing por­trays the process of devel­op­ing faster read­ing skills with­in a ten-day period.

This sum­ma­ry brings togeth­er the top meth­ods, sug­ges­tions, and illus­tra­tions from the book. By imme­di­ate­ly prac­tic­ing these tech­niques with your dai­ly news­pa­per or any non-fic­tion mate­ri­als at your dis­pos­al, you can progress towards becom­ing a faster read­er while retain­ing more of the content.

In this sum­ma­ry, you’ll discover:

• why our approach to read­ing is flawed;
• how you can absorb 40 per­cent of a book’s con­tent with­out read­ing it entire­ly; and
• the con­se­quences of under­uti­liz­ing your brain’s poten­tial to process information.

INDIVIDUALS PUT TOO MUCH STRAIN ON THEMSELVES DURING READING SESSIONS

The strug­gle between an excess of read­ing mate­r­i­al and lim­it­ed time is a com­mon dilem­ma. Every day, the pool of cap­ti­vat­ing read­ing options expands, increas­ing the back­log of books in your “to-read” list.

The issue is not sole­ly time-relat­ed; it stems from inef­fec­tive read­ing meth­ods fueled by pre­vail­ing mis­con­cep­tions about reading.

Pri­mar­i­ly, it is unnec­es­sary to read every­thing with­in a book or news­pa­per to grasp its essence. It is prac­ti­cal­ly impos­si­ble to read every piece of mate­r­i­al that comes across your desk. Instead, the key is to devel­op a habit of dis­cern­ing and pri­or­i­tiz­ing what is tru­ly impor­tant. Revis­it­ing this point lat­er, you will find it sur­pris­ing­ly sim­ple once you mas­ter tech­niques to pre­view con­tent effi­cient­ly and iden­ti­fy areas of gen­uine interest.

Addi­tion­al­ly, it is not imper­a­tive to retain every detail read to extract val­ue from the con­tent. The ten­den­cy to feel oblig­at­ed to com­mit every text­book detail to mem­o­ry orig­i­nates from the edu­ca­tion­al envi­ron­ment, where stu­dents are pres­sured to mem­o­rize con­tent for upcom­ing tests.

Nev­er­the­less, mem­o­rized facts reside in short-term mem­o­ry and are swift­ly for­got­ten. To secure infor­ma­tion for the future, estab­lish­ing a con­ve­nient retrieval sys­tem is essential.

Con­sid­er doc­u­ment­ing vital infor­ma­tion (either dig­i­tal­ly or on paper) or anno­tat­ing and high­light­ing con­tent in the mar­gins. Sub­se­quent­ly, orga­nize this mate­r­i­al for easy retrieval, alle­vi­at­ing the bur­den of attempt­ing to mem­o­rize every piece of information.

Fur­ther­more, there exists a mis­con­cep­tion that read­ing should be avoid­ed dur­ing work hours. Con­trary to this belief, read­ing is an inte­gral aspect of your pro­fes­sion­al responsibilities.

Indi­vid­u­als in busi­ness envi­ron­ments might fear being per­ceived as unpro­duc­tive if seen read­ing on the job. How­ev­er, read­ing rel­e­vant mate­ri­als can spawn fresh busi­ness con­cepts, keep you informed about indus­try trends, and equip you to out­per­form competitors.

Hence, read­ing at work is not only per­mis­si­ble but crucial!

ENHANCING YOUR EFFICIENCY AS A READER INVOLVES BREAKING A FEW DETRIMENTAL HABITS

Rep­e­ti­tion forms habits, whether pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive. Sim­i­lar­ly, read­ing habits are shaped by fre­quent prac­tices. So, what are some com­mon poor read­ing habits, and how can you over­come them?

One preva­lent bad habit is pas­sive day­dream­ing, where the mind wan­ders in numer­ous unre­lat­ed direc­tions dur­ing read­ing sessions.

The objec­tive is to mod­i­fy this unpro­duc­tive mind-wan­der­ing into active men­tal explo­ration, a form of think­ing that links the read infor­ma­tion to per­son­al expe­ri­ences. This approach facil­i­tates the fusion of exist­ing knowl­edge with new insights.

Tran­si­tion­ing involves steer­ing thoughts pur­pose­ful­ly. For instance, sup­pose you are perus­ing an arti­cle on Ital­ian art. Enable your thoughts to drift to your pre­vi­ous vis­it to Italy. This asso­ci­a­tion acts as a men­tal adhe­sive for inte­grat­ing new knowledge.

Anoth­er coun­ter­pro­duc­tive habit is regress­ing, which involves revis­it­ing pre­vi­ous­ly read sec­tions. To avoid this, cov­er the mate­r­i­al you have just read with a card, expos­ing only the line being read. While regress­ing often amounts to wast­ed time, instances where the author’s mes­sage is unclear or unfa­mil­iar vocab­u­lary emerges war­rant revisiting.

Sim­i­lar­ly, many indi­vid­u­als sub­vo­cal­ize while read­ing, either whis­per­ing words men­tal­ly or mouthing along with the text. Ordi­nar­i­ly, the brain process­es up to 400 words per minute; how­ev­er, vocal­iz­ing while read­ing lim­its the read­ing pace to around 150 words per minute.

Cease sub­vo­cal­iza­tion to enhance read­ing speed and sur­pass the 150 words per minute threshold!

When aim­ing for swift read­ing and elim­i­nat­ing sub­vo­cal­iza­tion, con­cen­trate on the crit­i­cal terms and skim over the remain­ing con­tent. Alter­nate­ly, engage in mut­ter­ing, hum­ming, or chew­ing gum while read­ing – these audi­ble cues accel­er­ate read­ing pace.

EMBRACE SHORTCUTS TO ENHANCE YOUR READING SPEED

With aware­ness of detri­men­tal habits, the path­way to becom­ing a faster, more effi­cient read­er unrav­els through three straight­for­ward steps.

Ini­tial­ly, main­tain a clear objec­tive and account­able mind­set con­cern­ing your read­ing mate­r­i­al. This stance aids in orga­ni­za­tion and focus.

Deter­mine what to peruse and what to skim through by ques­tion­ing, “Why am I read­ing this?” For instance, if your goal is to expand knowl­edge in a spe­cif­ic domain or stay informed on glob­al events, archiv­ing pro­fes­sion­al arti­cles from two years ago is unnecessary!

Sub­se­quent­ly, ask, “What pur­pose does this infor­ma­tion serve?” It may be for an exam­i­na­tion, a meet­ing, or aid­ing your child’s aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance. Yet, if your child excels aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, scru­ti­niz­ing their assign­ments dai­ly may not be obligatory.

Pri­or to delv­ing into any mate­r­i­al, pose these piv­otal ques­tions; if sat­is­fac­to­ry answers elude you, relin­quish reading.

Sec­ond­ly, pre­view all non­fic­tion con­tent before com­menc­ing a detailed perusal to grasp its essence and iden­ti­fy per­ti­nent sections.

Ini­ti­ate by scan­ning the ini­tial para­graphs to fath­om the intro­duc­tion’s direc­tion. Pro­ceed to peruse bold­ed sub­head­ings, titles, and sub­ti­tles. Final­ly, review the ini­tial sen­tences of para­graphs to glean insights into each sec­tion’s content.

Pre­view­ing equips you with con­tex­tu­al knowl­edge, facil­i­tat­ing a quick com­pre­hen­sion of the mate­r­i­al, and aids in deter­min­ing rel­e­vant segments.

Aids in accel­er­at­ing your under­stand­ing of the text by dimin­ish­ing the incli­na­tion to repeat­ed­ly peruse. Once you grasp the foun­da­tion­al infor­ma­tion, there’s no neces­si­ty to con­tin­u­al­ly review to con­firm comprehension.

Mere pre-read­ing pro­vides a sub­stan­tial chunk – a whop­ping 40 per­cent, to be pre­cise – of the essen­tial insights from the con­tent. The remain­ing con­tent mere­ly serves as expan­sion, clar­i­fi­ca­tion, or excess material.

The final step involves acquir­ing gen­uine speed-read­ing meth­ods, which will be delved into through­out the upcom­ing sum­maries con­tained with­in the book.

EXPERIMENT WITH EXCLUSIVELY SCANNING THE CORE TERMS

The third phase in evolv­ing into a pro­fi­cient read­er is mas­ter­ing the art of read­ing swiftly.

For many of us, read­ing instruc­tion halt­ed dur­ing pri­ma­ry school, hence our read­ing tech­niques are quite anti­quat­ed. Sub­se­quent sum­maries will intro­duce nov­el read­ing approach­es for you to exper­i­ment with. Test them all out and observe which ones yield the most favor­able results for you.

The ini­tial tech­nique entails con­cen­trat­ing sole­ly on sig­nif­i­cant words and dis­re­gard­ing the rest. As we read, our eyes have a propen­si­ty to dart back and forth rather than main­tain­ing a seam­less flow.

Fos­ter­ing a smoother flow is as straight­for­ward as iden­ti­fy­ing key­words, which are the more impact­ful words with­in a sen­tence. Typ­i­cal­ly, these words are longer than three let­ters and con­vey sig­nif­i­cance. For instance, attempt to read sole­ly the empha­sized words in the sub­se­quent sen­tence: The task is defined by a series of steps and ele­ments.

Notice? The com­plete sen­tence does­n’t need to be perused to grasp the mean­ing, hence focus sole­ly on the crit­i­cal words instead.

Anoth­er tac­tic involves halt­ing your eyes at thought clus­ters rather than iso­lat­ed words. Envi­sion break­ing down phras­es with slash­es: By identifying/thought clusters,/you prompt your eyes/to advance more swiftly/while upholding/solid comprehension.

Grasp­ing the com­plete phrase at each pause neces­si­tates uti­liz­ing your periph­er­al vision. You can enhance your periph­er­al vision through var­i­ous meth­ods, like swift­ly glanc­ing at phras­es and attempt­ing to recite them. Alter­na­tive­ly, dur­ing a traf­fic jam, you can prompt­ly glance at the license plate of the vehi­cle ahead and endeav­or to vocal­ize it.

Don’t be sur­prised if your eyes feel strained when employ­ing these tac­tics; they are mere­ly accli­mat­ing to a fresh rhythm. The more you engage your ocu­lar mus­cles, the more refined they become.

IMPLEMENT “READING BETWEEN THE LINES” AND “INDENTING” AS ADDITIONAL STRATEGIES

Here are a few more effec­tive maneu­vers to enhance your read­ing prowess:

To com­bat the habit of sub­vo­cal­iza­tion, one method is to con­cen­trate on the blank space just above each line. This approach enables you to per­ceive the upper por­tion of the let­ters with­out fix­at­ing on the words themselves.

The objec­tive here is to smooth­ly nav­i­gate through the words with­out becom­ing entan­gled in any. This is more attain­able when not hav­ing a direct gaze on the words.

Anoth­er approach known as the indent­ing tech­nique employs periph­er­al vision. Instead of direct­ing your eyes to the start of each line, endeav­or to aim them half an inch inward from the left mar­gin and cease read­ing half an inch before reach­ing the right mar­gin. Using your periph­er­al vision, you can still observe the ini­ti­a­tion and con­clu­sion of a line.

By avert­ing focus on all the words, you min­i­mize the chances of numer­ous halts and jerks when scan­ning through the lines. If your eyes are halt­ing sev­en or eight times per line and you can reduce this by a sin­gle stop, it can enhance your over­all pace by over ten percent!

Ini­tial­ly, some may find this approach pecu­liar. To ease into ini­ti­at­ing a line post its actu­al com­mence­ment, draw ver­ti­cal lines approx­i­mate­ly half an inch inside both mar­gins. This method fur­nish­es a clear guide on where to insti­gate and cease your eye movements.

Refresh­ing a skill you already pos­sess may pro­voke frus­tra­tion. Per­sist in prac­tic­ing! Occa­sion­al­ly, pro­fi­cien­cy may decline before an upturn, and the even­tu­al ben­e­fits far out­weigh any ini­tial exasperation.

UTILIZE YOUR HAND OR A PEN AS GUIDES FOR YOUR EYES, FACILITATING RAPID READING HABITS

Dur­ing our child­hood read­ing instruc­tion, we habit­u­al­ly uti­lized a fin­ger or anoth­er point­er to pace our read­ing and enhance our com­pre­hen­sion. Why should we for­sake hon­ing that abil­i­ty once we’re adept at read­ing? We should­n’t; in fact, it can prove immense­ly advantageous.

Eyes instinc­tive­ly fol­low motion. When there’s a fly in the vicin­i­ty, your eyes swift­ly detect it. Sim­i­lar­ly, ges­tic­u­lat­ing and direct­ing your fin­gers can expe­dite guid­ing your eyes through tex­tu­al con­tent. Sim­ply posi­tion your fin­ger to the left or right of a line, then glide it grad­u­al­ly down­ward to the base of the page while read­ing across the line.

When perus­ing nar­row columns akin to those found in news­pa­pers, sit­u­ate your index fin­ger at the cen­ter of a para­graph just beneath the line being read. With each sen­tence you tra­verse, maneu­ver your fin­ger direct­ly down or in a ser­pen­tine motion across a line to direct your eyes.

Sub­se­quent­ly, con­ceal the sec­tion you’ve already perused to pre­vent regres­sion. One effec­tive method is the busi­ness card tech­nique; anoth­er sole­ly neces­si­tates the use of your hand. Form a fist with your left hand, extend­ing your thumb to the side. Then, hor­i­zon­tal­ly or ver­ti­cal­ly mask the text you’ve recent­ly read with your hand.

Com­pa­ra­ble to the busi­ness card approach learned pre­vi­ous­ly, obscur­ing the pre­vi­ous­ly read text safe­guards against unin­tend­ed re-reading.

These tech­niques may induce dis­com­fort or awk­ward­ness, yet they con­tribute to cul­ti­vat­ing rapid read­ing habits. Anal­o­gous to train­ing wheels, you can dis­card them once they’re no longer imperative.

IN REVIEW: 10 DAYS TO SWIFT READING BOOK SUMMARY

The cen­tral idea con­veyed in this book:

For the major­i­ty of indi­vid­u­als, for­mal read­ing instruc­tion ceas­es in ele­men­tary school, thus ren­der­ing our adult read­ing behav­iors severe­ly anti­quat­ed. To opti­mize your read­ing expe­ri­ence, relearn how to pri­or­i­tize, pre-read, and quick­en your read­ing pace to cope with the con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous fast-paced environment.

Prac­ti­cal rec­om­men­da­tion: Take a pause every 20 minutes.

Stud­ies indi­cate that peo­ple can effec­tive­ly con­cen­trate on read­ing for about 20 min­utes at a stretch, so refrain from exhaust­ing your­self. Allo­cate a five-minute break every 20 to 30 min­utes to allow your brain and eyes to reju­ve­nate. More­over, don’t engage in con­tin­u­ous read­ing for over an hour with­out tak­ing a break!