Comprehending what you read better comes easy one you know the mechanics of how you comprehend. In my post Reading Comprehension Strategies, I cover in detail the mechanics of how reading comprehension works. I highly recommend you check it out fist prior to moving on to this tip.

The Tip: Read the first sentence of every paragraph prior to reading the article in it’s entirety.

As simple as this sounds, this technique is very effective for improving your reading comprehension. The first sentence in every paragraph is called the “topic sentence”. In the formal academic paragraph, it is the most general of all sentences and contains within it, the most relevant information about the paragraph’s contents. By taking the time to read the first sentence of each paragraph prior to reading the entire article, you will learn a great deal about the article’s contents. When you then read the article, you will comprehend it better.

This little tip is a spin on the truth that if you read an article twice, you will comprehend it better. That’s however a very time consuming task and won’t help you in your overall reading speed. If you read the first sentence of very paragraph, you will be able to enjoy the same benefits of reading it twice but in a fraction of the time. Give it a shot and post your feedback, thanks for reading!

More people today are interested in Speed Reading then ever before! I believe that this interest has a strong relationship to the volume of information that has become available thanks to the power of the internet. I recently joined in to make a contribution to this information pool by starting my own Speed Reading blog, based on my knowledge and insights of the subject in the hopes of helping people all over the world take in information faster. All this being said, I get asked one question a lot as an instructor by friends and just about everyone that knows about the Speed Reading classes I teach for Iris. It is…

What is the number one step I can can take right now to read faster?

Is there really a way to teach someone how to read faster with one simple step?

Yes there is and today I want to share it with you. If you follow this one step that I am going to share, you should at least notice an immediate 20% increase in your reading speed. With practice, you will break well beyond that barrier. All it takes is time and practice.

Use your finger or a pen as a guide to assist you while you read. Consider the pen or your finger as a guide to focus your awareness. Without having a guide to zone in on our focus, we can easily end up reading very inefficiently resulting in a huge loss of speed. If you use a guide like your finger or a pen, you can not only increase your focus on reading, you can also push yourself to read a little faster. It is to my estimate that most of us without any formal training on Speed Reading, already have the ability to read 20% faster just by using a guide to focus our awareness.

How to you do it properly?

Use your finger to hover under the word you are reading. Allow your finger to move a little faster then you normally would read and let it be your guide as you go from line to line, focusing on the word above your finger. It is very simple yet very effective. One of our major problems today is lack of focus. Lack of focus will cause you to read slower. By using your finger or a pen, you not only increase your focus, you also maintain it for longer periods. Also, you can increase your reading speed by simply moving your guide a little faster then you normally read.

Will you always have to read with your finger or a pen going forth?

No, with practice you will be able to maintain most of the speed without using the guide. When I started Speed Reading, I used my finger as a guide a lot and kept practicing every time I read. Eventually, I found that I was able to read almost as fast without the guide. I still use the guide when I feel that I am lacking focus or if I would like to improve my speed even more. When you read with a guide, you train yourself to focus and read faster. Once you have trained yourself, you will be able to read fast without the guide.

But what about reading on a computer screen? Do you still use a guide?

I recommend Accelareader when reading material on a computer. You won’t need your finger at all because Accelareader will take your text and display it one word at a time so you only have to focus on one spot. Just follow the instructions on the Accelareader site and enjoy reading on a computer like you have never done before. In an upcoming post, I will show you how to use Accelareader with great detail to read faster and also improve your reading comprehension. It is a great free tool and I highly recommended that you check it out!

So there it is, the simplest yet most effective step you can take right now to improve your reading speed. We cover this in our workshops along with other techniques to help you read even faster. We also teach our students how to comprehend the information better and retain it longer with special techniques and strategies. The goal of our workshops is to help you read faster, comprehend more and retain information longer. I highly recommend that you take advantage of one of our workshops if you are ready to improve your reading speed, comprehension and retention. Thanks for reading this post, if you have any questions, please post a comment below and I will respond back as soon as I can. You can also e-mail directly me at joe@irisreading.com.

A major shareholder of Borders suggested that the smaller bookseller should acquire its much bigger rival Barnes & Noble. Both booksellers are now threatened by Google, which launched its Google eBookstore yesterday.

Borders and Barnes & Noble have struggled for a number of years after Amazon and other online booksellers gained market share. A merger of the two could lead to large cost savings through economies of scale.

The book selling business has definitely evolved over the years. When Borders and Barnes & Noble started creating their superstores in the 1990s, many small bookstores, unable to compete on price and selection, had to close. Once Amazon turned up, the fortunes of Borders and Barnes & Noble started to change. Both are now struggling retailers trying to survive.

You can buy a book from the Google eBookstore and store it digitally in the cloud, allowing you to take it anywhere you go. You can start reading on your desktop at home and continue reading later in the day from your phone, laptop, iPad – pretty much any device with an internet connection. The open standard doesn’t lock you into a specific device. This will surely lead to a greater adoption of eBooks, a trend that really started to accelerate when Amazon released its Kindle.

It seems that no matter where you go these days, sleigh bells jingle incessantly and shopping mall Santas merrily toss candy canes your way.  There’s no doubt that the holidays are inching closer and closer. So while you innocently stand beneath that mistletoe and coyly eye the passersby, think about what the holiday season is really about: lots and lots of giving—gift-giving.  Here’s making the gift-buying decision a little easier for you.   (more…)