Another huge profit besides the 7 Benefits of speed reading is improving your comprehension and increasing your concentration. Allow me to explain you how:
How to Read a Book and Better Comprehend
There is a general procedure I go through to read, and comprehend a text very quickly. However, it may differ slightly from book to book, since my reading goal may also differ from book to book. For example, with an informational book I want to: 1) Get an overview of it’s most important aspects. 2) Gain insight into the essential details. 3) Understand it, value it, and evaluate it against the things which I already know. Moreover, I want to hold onto my new knowledge, and to be able to accurately translate it into my own words, and incorporate it into my conversations or writings. With a novel, on the other hand, I don’t want to get an overview, since I don’t want to know how it ends. I want to be surprised by the plot and I want to experience those surprises in the order the writer intended me to. Only in the end do I want to understand both the means and the overall message of the writer.
Procedure for an Informational Book
- Make a Mind Map of What you Already Know About the Subject. You create references in advance by making a Mind Map of the things you already know. As a consequence, it will be much easier to remember what you read, because you can more quickly create mnemonic versions of all the information. A mnemonic, by the way, is an information translation that aids your brain retention
- Read the Back and the Table of Contents. Read the back of the book, study the content, and try to make a second Mind Map concerning the coherence of the different chapters. But make this mind map in your head only. The main theme can often be derived from the main title or back cover, whereas the chapter titles will generally give clues to the sub-themes.
- Preview the Book using Titles of Chapters, Subtitles, and Images or Striking Words and Sentences. It is much easier to understand a text after you’ve previewed it. Tony Buzan defines previewing as: combining skimming with your knowledge of the paragraph structures of texts. By previewing, you make it easier for your brain to logically organize the information (to make an ‘internal mind map’) since you try to discover the main structure of the text. The main structure consists of the keywords and sentences that will give you the overall message of the writer. It’s like a super-concise summary. You’ll build on this key information when you (speed) read the text. But before you start speed reading, decide how much time you want to spend on each chapter. You should write this down on a Post It note which you can keep inside the front cover. Furthermore, if I haven’t read reviews on the book already, I read them now. In this way I can consider the views of others while at the same time forming my own views.
- Scanning and Skimming. Scanning is the search for specific information in a text, like a certain word, for example. You do it when you look for a name on a list, and you use your finger as a guide for your eyes. Skimming, on the other hand, is a rapid search for the general meaning.
- Understanding of Text Structures. Information, if it’s well written, is logically organized in the text structure. So the main points should be signposted in the chapter titles and the next level information should be marked by sub-titles. After that, the first sentence of a paragraph should contain the essence of its message. The middle part of a paragraph should provide specific information and arguments that support the first sentence. And the final sentence of a paragraph should draw it all to a neat conclusion.There are three main types of paragraph:
- explanatory (contains the ideas of the writer)
- descriptive (extra …. which continues the ideas of the explanatory paragraph)
- linking (used to join the ideas expressed in the explanatory paragraphs)The first and the last type are most important for our purposes.
- Study the Content Again and Make the Second Mind Map on Paper with a Pencil. Write the main theme in the center, and use the first level branches for the sub-themes. Mostly these sub-theme branches will be made up of keywords you’ve taken from the titles of chapters. It may also be, that through the combination of review comments and your first skim of the book, you’ve already formed some ideas about the sub theme. If so, these can be noted at this stage too. Use them to populate the second level branches.
- Skim the Book Again. But this time with your focus on Titles of chapters, sub-titles, and first lines of paragraphs. I’ve found the first lines of paragraphs to be the most important at this stage. They’re a simplified reflection of all that’s to be told. See point (5) for a further explanation.
- Complement Your Mind Map with the New Insights of the Second Skim.
- Now Speed Read the Book and Complete the Mind Map. While you’re reading you can underscore keywords, key sentences, and difficult words (for which you search for the meaning later). You can also write notes and any questions you may have in the blank space to the side of the text. Oh, and don’t be afraid to erase any keywords and/or branches that are no longer beneficial to you. It’s why you used a pencil, after all. TIP: Always be alert and critical while reading!
- Be Active. Passive reading is like passive learning. And passive learning is simply outdated. We all know that the performance of students in an active learning environment is much higher than that of students who simply listen to their teacher in silence. Ask questions and make critical remarks and your brain will become active. It will process the new information and link it to older, stored information. In short, active learning will give you access to the bigger picture. So make notes in your book and write down those questions. Like I said, always be alert and critical while reading. Your skills will improve through this alone.
- Have a Break…. After you’ve finished the book and you’re content with your mind map, take a small break from the text. Whilst you do so, think about what you’ve just read, embed that new information firmly within your brain, and make a neater version of your mind map. At this point you should supplement the mind map with comments or questions. If you value and evaluate the new information, it will be easier for you to store it in your long term memory. It’s the 4th and 5th step of reading as defined by Tony Buzan: extra-integration and storage.
Further Tips to Increase Your Comprehension
- Expand Your Knowledge of Words. I think this tip is clear enough. You will lose out on so much if you don’t understand what you read. There is a saying: “People with a rich vocabulary, live a rich life”. The more words you know, the more ways you have to express your feelings and to live and experience those feelings. It’s the same with the texts you read. You enrich your experience of a novel when you understand its every word. Only then can you read it as the writer intended.
TIP: Enrich your vocabulary every day. Take a piece of paper, or your laptop, or your phone, and write down any word you encountered, be it in the newspaper, a book, or a conversation, which you didn’t fully understand. Keep them all in a list format and go over the list regularly. With repetition you will add these words to your own vocabulary
Conceptual Difficulty
- Do not read slower if the writing gets harder to understand. Instead, read the text in multiple ways (i.e. scan and skim a couple of times) to retrieve the main message and the essential information. Your level of comprehension will only decrease if you start to read slower. This is because you brain has to go through more steps to make sense of the syllables, than it does to make sense of the word groups. I explain this further in Speed Reading: the 7 big benefits.
Tips to Increase Your Concentration While Reading
- Underscore Difficult Words And come back to them. Don’t search for their meaning there and then, it will only disrupt your flow. It’s much better to underscore difficult words, continue your reading, and look them up once you’ve finished the chapter. Difficult words become clearer in context. So you’ll most likely find that you didn’t lose track the overall meaning. In fact, you’re probably only looking them up now to improve your vocabulary.
- Take a Break Every 45 Minutes. The attention span of most humans is around 45 minutes. After 45 minutes you’ll notice it’s hard to focus. Re-gaining your focus by continually telling yourself to focus will cost you a lot of energy. It’s much better to take a break of around 10 minutes. Take a walk or do a breathing exercise. By doing so you will ‘activate’ your body once more and ensure your brain has enough oxygen.
Now you are ready for the next step…
Speed Reading Part VII: How to Practice Speed Reading?
THIS POST IS AN ITEM IN THE SERIES ON SPEED READING
- Speed Reading Part I : The 7 big benefits
- Speed Reading Part II : 5 Essential Tips For Preparation
- Speed Reading Part III : Test Your Current Reading Speed
- Speed Reading Part IV : Improve Old Reading Habits
- Speed Reading Part V : Techniques To Increase Your Reading Speed
- Speed Reading Part VII : How To Practice Speed Reading?
For Further Reading About How To Speed Up the Comprehension Process Of What You Read, I Recommend:
- The Speed Reading Book, by Tony Buzan
- The Evelyn Wood 7-day Speed Reading & Learning Program, by Stanley D. Frank
- Learn To Speed Read, Kris Madden