Rapid Reading & Comprehension

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Continue reading "Breakthrough Rapid Reading" by Peter Kump. I just started doing the first drill for the week, short 2-minute reading practices.

The drills, for the first four times, start from the same place in a book, read as fast as I can for 2 minutes. After each round, recall the content and write down. For the fifth time, following the farthest end point from the previous four practices, read as fast as I can for 2 minutes. Recall the content and write down. Calculate the speed of reading words per minute (WPM).

The purpose is to maintain a quality level of comprehension while trying to read as fast as possible. After all, reading without understanding doesn't make sense.

I was a bit shocked that my WPM for the fourth practice was 800+ and for my fifth practice 600+, given the fact that my initial evaluation was 224 words per minute. However, I can feel that I was focusing so much on reading speed that there were times that I glanced at words without reflecting them in my mind. That's why this "recall and write down what I remembered" came in handy -- it really forced me to remember what I read. Far from satisfaction, but I'm making progress.