Here I take on Common Misconception #2 that many people have about reading. This concerns the fact that many people have the belief that reading fast reduces comprehension. When the opposite is true - that when you speed up your reading - your comprehension increases - and I explain why that happens.

Common misconception #2: Reading fast reduces comprehension

In this short video series, I will go into three of the seven very common misconceptions I hear from my students regarding their reading habits. These are misconceptions that might be holding you back – and you need to find out if this applies to you. If any of the three misconceptions I mention here apply to you – that is alright – do not worry about it - because that only means that you are on the exactly right page for you. Because in order for you to take the next step – you need to know what misunderstandings or fallacies you have today in order to fix them – and take the right step in going forward.

Another common misconception is that if you read fast through the text that your understanding or comprehension of the text is reduced. Most of my students that come to my courses have the notion that if you read two or three times faster through the chapter – your comprehension cannot be as good as if you read it at your “natural” speed.

This could not be further from the truth. The fact is that when you read faster – your comprehension increases. A fact that many of my students have attained in my courses. In every session – they take a reading test and answer questions afterwards – and see for a fact that more speed – increases comprehension.

The reason for this is quite simple – when you read faster through the text – your focus while reading increases and you retain more of the facts and figures of the text. You cannot of course – go ten times as fast in your first session and hope to comprehend more – but by gradually gaining speed and skills – more comprehension will follow increased reading speed.

The speed I ask all my students to gain as fast as they can is 400 words per minute. This is the optimal speed for you to reduce the inherent subvocalization that we all cling to for way to long. When you reach 400 words per minute – you have reached a speed where your mind cannot easily say each and every word aloud in your mind. Your mind begins to inherently take the next step – to group the words together.

One of the main things that reduces comprehension is lack of focus, and that happens simply because you read far too slow. Your brain is bored, and when you read, it uses the extra processing power of your brain to daydream, think of other tasks, what to eat or do over the weekend. It is bored because your brain can process the text faster than you read. A person who is talking – can never talk as fast as your brain can think. If you are stuck with subvocalizing – each and every word in your text – you are hindering your brain to go as fast as it wants; hence it gets bored.

Since many of my students are College or University students, I often take their reading as an example of how important your reading speed can be in regards to focus and comprehension. The average College or University student – reads around 100 words per minute when toiling through their textbooks. The reason for this is that in their world – with all the reading and reports they need to get done – they only have time to read the chapter once over.

So in order for them to utilize their time efficiently – reading the chapter once – to get all the hard facts, the keywords, the key answers and all the important learning tidbits. They read the chapter through at only 100 words per minute. That is only a quarter or one-fourth of the speed I want them to use – 100/400. And how easily does your brain get bored reading 100 words per minute when it should try to attain 400 words per minute.

I gave this example earlier in the book but if you are a student – I do recommend that you take this example to heart. If you were at home watching a fun and exciting two-hour movie – and decided – just for the fun of it – to reduce the speed of the movie to a quarter of its normal speed. Everything that is happening in the movie now – talking, fighting, movement – is at the quarter of the speed as it should be. How exciting would that be? Yay!

This would easily bore you to death. You have taken a two-hour fun-filled movie and turned it into an 8-hour nightmare. Where you would need to sit through eight hours of slow motion and baffling talking. How do you feel when you are sitting in your room or at the school library – reading your textbook at your regular slow pace? Is it fun? Or are you bored - is it close to the same nightmarish feeling you would get when you need to sit through a movie playing at a quarter of its normal speed?

In conclusion

When you increase your reading speed – your focus, your comprehension, your excitement about the reading material is always better. It is not how fast you read that reduces your comprehension – it is rather your lack of focus and reading skills that are holding you back. If you view reading as any other skill that can be trained and mastered – you will see that by increasing speed and focus in your reading material – you will gain more comprehension.