Habits are relatively easy to develop, but often hard to break. The hardest habits to change are ones you don’t even know you have. One of the first steps in becoming a speed reader is identifying your bad habits and learning to overcome them. What you might not realize is that you probably have good reading habits, too, and you can benefit from focusing on these and using them to their fullest extent. Here are the 7 good reading strategies that you should encourage (or develop, if you’re not already following them):

Read phrases, not words. Good speed readers know how to “clump” words together into phrases, and have trained their eyes to take in the entire phrase, rather than reading each word one by one.

Improve your vocabulary. A successful speed reader has achieved this success in part due to their strong and expansive vocabulary. It’s just common sense: the more words you know, the faster you’ll read, because you won’t have to keep stopping to look things up, or going back to clear up confusion after you’ve misunderstood a passage.

Explore new materials. When you read a variety of materials (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, blogs) on topics that interest you, and also topics that are new to you, you’ll maximize your opportunities to learn new words. What’s more, you’ll become familiar with different styles of writing. This will speed up your overall reading time because you’ll be able to anticipate where you’re likely to find information, and how it will be formatted in the text.

Focus on comprehension. Many people new to speed reading think that speed is everything, but without comprehension, speed is useless. If you go so fast through the text that you don’t understand or remember what you’ve read, you’ll have to re-read it. Make sure that you’re reading at a pace that’s just slow enough for good comprehension.

Focus on concentration. A large part of comprehension comes from your mental focus. If you’re distracted, you’ll find it almost impossible to absorb the material you’re reading, and definitely impossible to remember it later. If there’s something you need to read, set aside time in a quiet place and concentrate on it.

Keep practicing. When you first learned to read as a child, it took constant practice before you could read with ease. Now that you’re an adult, you should devote the same effort to learn to read with speed.

Enjoy the process. As you increase reading speed, you’ll gain confidence in your abilities, and that will provide the motivation you need to keep reading and practicing. After all, the better you are at anything, the more you’ll enjoy doing it. Learn to enjoy reading, and you’ll easily improve your reading speed.