How To Speed Read and Remember Them

Introduction

Everyone wants to learn the hack to speed read and memorize it for a longer period of time. Reading level can be improved over practice over a period. In this article, we will share 17 tips to speed read and remember the contents for a longer period of time. To hack speed read and remembering them my favorite tip is the 15th one.

1

Concentration

While you are speed reading make sure you are the concentration at you max level. Keep distracting things away from you such as your mobile or any tools or device or any applications near you which will hamper the process. Just focus on reading only and this will increase your performance to hold the content of the book for a longer period in your memory.

2

Speed

To increase the speed of your reading follow the tips below;

  • Let your speed be the first priority, the level of your brain to grab the knowledge from the book will improve over the time by practice
  • Use pen or anything that will point to the line you are reading
  • Don’t focus on a single line rather the whole books
  • Do not move your eyeballs
  • Rather than reading out loud read it by your eyes, your brain will memorize things faster for you rather than your tongue

3

Understanding

On your reading materials, your reading level will vary. Reading a storybook requires a different level of understanding rather than reading a textbook from your school. At first, understand the context and read it accordingly. This will help you to speed read according to the level and imprint it into your memory for a longer period of time.

4

Note Taking

It is indeed difficult to speed read the books and memorize them for a longer period. People tend to forget more than 60% of it if they do not practice the content they have memorized. Reading the same content several times will make it easier for you to imprint it in your memory for a longer period of time. Below I have shared the shortcut of repetition;

  • Write down notes while you are revising the contents
  • Teach it to someone this will enhance the level of your understanding
  • Draw a mind map, in this way you will know the gist of everything that needs to be remembered and by using the gist you will be able to recall everything easily
  • Make using of mnemonics, this trick is really handy to remember things for a longer period of time

5

Pre-reading

Before reading the material, it is not possible for us to know beforehand what is important and not important. For this purpose, pre-reading is important. During pre-reading, you should write down a summary which will act as a guide for you. Break it down into points so that you can easily skim through it and read the required headlines per your summary.

6

Reading

There are definitely several techniques available to read in a proper way. During pre-reading you have already created the summary, just skim through the materials and find those keywords that you have written down during pre-reading and read those important points only.

While reading when you bump through any of the words that you have written down in your outline while pre-reading slows down a bit, read slowly to understand what you are reading, mark down the important points and try to remember the gist only.  As by remembering the gist only you will be able to recall the whole thing easily. While reading use highlighters and only use the write colors that are soothing for the brain to remember things easily.

7

Laser Focus

So, are pre-reading and reading it is really important to note down in a proper manner for you to understand the content easily. By writing down notes it will help you to recall your memory over again and imprint it in your memory for a longer period of time. Writing down also helps you to make sure that you remember the right things and not missing out the required things and even if you miss it out, you can add it during your note-taking.

To take notes properly you must follow the below steps;

  • Keep the book at a way that you were reading
  • Create notes by recalling your memory
  • Review the notes to make sure that you are not missing out anything
  • Re-create the notes from your memory again
  • Then re-check to make sure that you have recalled everything properly

This step will help you to write down your notes at a proper method and imprint it in your memory for a longer period of time.

8

Re-reading

So, after you are done with pre-reading, reading and note-taking phase re-read the material again just to make sure that you have jotted down the right words. And even if you miss out anything no need to worry just add to the summary that you have written during pre-reading. Once you have noted it down start the reading and note-taking phase again and end it with re-reading when you realize there is nothing to miss and you have jotted down all the important points to make your notes and memory bulletproof. This procedure will help you to recall your memory easily as you have thought of.

9

Explain To Others

 

By pre-reading, reading, note-taking and re-reading the information that you have gathered needs to be imprinted in your memory cell for a longer period of time and to achieve that you need to explain others what you have learned. This will help you to recall what you have learned and by teaching it to others you will imprint the information in your memory for a longer period. And if you are finding it too difficult to recall some of the memory that you have learned, you can just go back to that chapter and re-read it to retain the required information.

By explaining the information to others, you get to know your strength and weakness of your memory and practice it is required accordingly.

 

10

Read out loud

Reading out loud is really helpful to build permanent memory cells. By listening to your own voice while reading out loud has a different impact on your memory rather reading silently on your own. The combination of reading and hearing creates a unique form of memory which can be retained for a longer time.

11

Pointer Method

While you are speed reading it gets difficult to keep track of the exact line or word that you are reading. A pen, pencil or anything sharp or pointy things can be used as a pointer to be pointed and followed while speed reading. This will help you to stay focus on what you are reading and the concentration will help your brain to fetch the required amount of knowledge from the book.

12

Tracker-and-Pacer Method

The tracker-and-pacer method is similar to the pointer method mentioned above. In this case, while you are using a pen or a pencil as a pointer strike the word or sentence or the line while reading. This will help your eyes to stay focus at the tip of the pen or pencil and you will be using your full concentration to stay focused. In this way, your brain will easily write it down in your memory for a longer duration.

You can either decide to mark the whole line while reading or maybe any word that you can use as a gist to recall the whole thing. At first, spend a few seconds at first line and later try to increase your speed of reading either by line or pages as you prefer. At first, you might find it difficult to retain all the information but as you speed up your brain will adjust to your reading speed and it will retain the information accordingly at your reading speed.

13

Cover words while finishing reading it

While you are reading a sentence, once you are done reading it, cover the finished area with your hand and try to recall what you have learned from your memory. This trick will help you to understand your level of memory and you can re-read as required to imprint it in your memory for a longer period.

14

Benchmark the progress

While speed reading it is really important to benchmark the progress of your study. This lets you keep track of your study and how much you have achieved. Keep count of words you read every minute. Create a benchmark accordingly, and keep increasing the number of words you need to read per minute, this helps you to increase the speed of reading.

15

Keep practicing

To improve your reading speed, you must keep on practicing. The more you will practice the more words you will be reading per minute; your concentration will increase and it will improve your brain to keep up with the movement of your eyes.

The more you will speed read your concentration level, speed, understanding and memorization skillset will enhance as well. So, keep on practicing, benchmark your progress in speed reading and keep on checking the amount of information you have gathered while speed reading. Keep on recalling from your memories and check your progress.

16

Reading things emotionally attached

While speed reading, try to attach the things that you are reading to your memory. As the memory intertwined with your memory will be stored for a longer duration which will be helpful for you to easily recall it. Emotion influences the hippocampus which works as the function of memory in the brain. The effect of emotion binds the memory for a longer duration rather than reading normally with no emotion at all.

17

Mind mapping

By drawing a mind map you will be able to picture the scenario of the book that you were reading. As visual images have more impact on your brain rather than just words or sentences. Let’s talk about Pinterest, where the images are categorized according to their type and visually you get to see more of similar images.

So, by mind mapping, you will get the gist of what you are planning to recall. Just at a glance at your mind map, you will fetch the memory within a very short period and even if you miss out anything just look at the mind map, you do not have to open the book again to see what you have missed. Mind map also saves your time as well.

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed the methods of speed reading and how should you remember them. To speed read you must concentrate, keep track of your speed, understand what you are speed reading, memorize the materials that you are speed reading. You should pre-read before speed reading, then read it, take notes and re-read it to make sure not to miss out anything. To memorize for a longer period you should explain your retained information to others, read it out loud, use a pointer to concentrate, must use track-and-pacer method to create a greater emphasis than just using a pointer, cover the sentences that you just finished reading, benchmark your progress to keep track of your performance, must keep practicing, read the materials by intertwining your memory with your reading and definitely draw a mind map to imagine what you have read.

I hope this article has motivated to speed read and enhance your memory in the study. Do not forget to share your feedback or any queries regarding this article, we are here to listen.

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Hannah V. Rucker

Hannah V. Rucker

Hannah used to work in the AML field in a financial organization. She's now an agent in CAMS EXAM in examination team. Consolidating and reviewing CAMS EXAM questions bank and study materials.