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Is the pile of reading materials in your office turning into a fire hazard? Learning a few basic speed-reading techniques can help.
The average reader, reading at a rate of about 252 words per minute, will finish this article in approximately six minutes. Go ahead-time yourself Steve Moidel, who reads up to 1,200 words per minute, will finish it in less than 90 seconds. Not only that, he'll probably comprehend more of it.
Moidel was not born with the ability to race through printed material. Speed reading is a skill he has developed and perfected through daily practice. Today, as president of Allstate Speed Reading Center in Westlake Village, Calif., he teaches business executives, students, and regular working stiffs how they, too, can improve their reading ability. "Anybody can double his or her reading speed within a few hours," he says.
Speed reading was once considered nothing but a fad. When President John F. Kennedy, a self-taught speed reader, hired consultants from Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics to teach White House staffers how to read more quickly, scores of Americans signed up for similar courses. Without such a visible cheerleader, the popularity of the courses eventually declined. But today, with the proliferation of trade journals, newsletters, interoffice memos, and e-mail, speed reading is back in vogue, not out of trendiness, but from sheer necessity.
"The average professional has to read one million words a week just to keep current," says Moidel. Reading at a normal rate, this would take 66 hours a week. A speed reader, on the other hand, can cut weekly reading time to-at most-16 hours. The actual time spent would probably be even lower because proficient speed readers also learn what not to read.
Not possible, you say? You believe you're already reading as fast as you can. Nonsense, Moidel says. "If they really apply themselves, [people] can read three to five times faster than they are already." In fact, 750 words per minute is a realistic goal for every reader.
Learning speed reading is like learning any psychomotor skill. Take tennis, for example. You can learn the basic mechanics of serving, hitting the ball over the net, and returning volleys within a day. But perfecting your game takes formal instruction and...