Having the ability to download and carry thousands of books with you on your notebook, laptop, or e-reader is one of the many benefits of 21st century technology. More and more people are taking advantage of this technology; according to a recent Pew Research Center study, 21 percent of Americans say that they read an e-book during the previous 12 months. Even more people – especially younger ones – use e-readers or other devices to read online magazines, news articles, or journals. And the most exciting findings from this study show that people who read e-books are also reading more books overall. According to the researchers, the average e-book reader goes through 60% more material than someone who doesn’t use an e-reader: 24 books per year, rather than 15.
One reason why e-book readers might be able to read more books is that they can do it at a faster rate. Using an e-reader provides several opportunities for working on speed reading skills. Here are three ways you can use e-books to improve reading speed:
Eliminate the tendency to reread by using scrolling. One of the habits that many people get into is “looking back” at what they’ve already read, either because they weren’t focused on the text the first time, or they aren’t confident that they understood what they read. However, if the text you’ve already read is no longer visible, your eyes won’t automatically flick back to that section. Learn how to focus on the text and eliminate this habit by using the scrolling feature on the screen when you can. Keep the text you’re reading at the top so that it disappears as you scroll. If you have to go back to find information you missed, you’ll be able to do that, but you won’t slow yourself down by unconsciously re-reading text you don’t need to review.
Improve your ability to process more words at once. Another bad habit many people carry over from their first attempts at reading is taking each word one at a time. Once you know how to read, your eyes and your brain can actually handle multiple words at the same time – as long as you trust them to do so. Speed reading depends on the ability to “clump” words into groups, and you can practice this by changing the display column width on your e-reader. Bring the margins in so that only 5 to 10 words appear on each line, and widen your visual focus so that you’re reading each line as a group.
Expand your vocabulary and your reading skills. As we said earlier, one of the big advantages of e-readers is the ability to access thousands of different books on a variety of topics. When you read a lot, and read a lot of different things, you’ll get a bigger vocabulary and better overall knowledge on a range of subjects. The more you know, the easier and faster it will be to read new texts, because you won’t have to stop and look things up.
If you’re interested in more results of the Pew Research study on e-readers, click here.
