Do you have to read a 30-page report by tomorrow morning (and make supper and tidy up the house and run errands)? Do you have an exam on Friday for which you have to read the entire textbook? Are you expected to keep up with current events (which means reading, in your spare time, 3 major newspapers cover to cover)? Do you want to educate yourself on economics, history, or any other topic that will better you professionally or personally? Do you have to or want to read any type of informational text, but can't seem to squeeze it in? You are not alone!

Reading is very important for people of all walks of life. In this age of information, we are constantly inundated with written material. And to keep up in the work place, at school, and in social situations, a vast amount of reading is necessary. Unfortunately, many people just can't set aside enough hours to manage the sheer bulk of reading material that looms over their heads. The result is that they aren't as well read as they could or should be.

The myth that reading is overly time-consuming and tedious has unfortunately permeated the minds of many. The truth is that one needn't have tons of free time to complete stacks of reading. In fact, what may seem like an unmanageable mound of text can quite easily be transformed into a digestible morsel of information. Every single reader on this planet has the power to become a speed-reader.

In fact, you probably have several speeds of reading already. When you are skipping through a magazine in a store or in the dentist's office, think of how quickly you read. You are gleaning the information that you want and taking only the tidbits that jump out at you without actually reading every single letter. When surfing the Internet, most people will do a search for whatever it is they need, and will scroll and click very quickly through text, scanning the page and stopping only to read small and relevant segments. If you are expecting an important letter in the mail (an acceptance letter to a university, an approval for a credit card, or a job acceptance letter), you wouldn't open the envelope, unfold the letter, start at the beginning and slowly and methodically read through. Rather, you would rip open the envelope, unfold the letter, and allow your eyes to scan the entire page for that crucial bit of information. You usually know exactly where to look for the words that you so desperately need to read. As you can see, every one of us has a natural speed-reader within dying to get out.

Becoming a consistent speed-reader is just a matter of actually becoming conscious of certain tried and true methods and practicing them. Within a week of practice, anybody can be devouring numerous articles, books, boring documents and so on in a fraction of the time it may have taken them before. And you can actually improve your comprehension if you increase your reading speed properly. Studies have shown that deliberately reading slowly, word by word, does NOT increase comprehension. In fact, slow methodical reading is more likely to result in a fragmented concentration span (or a deep sleep).

Speed reading is not just accelerating your reading by forcing yourself along at top speed. It is a new way to read that comprises a collection of habits that help you to read what you have to faster, while understanding more. If this sounds paradoxical, remember that written text is never solid content from beginning to end. Any paragraph, chapter, section or book is littered with filler words, transitional phrases, stylistic prose, and so on. A large part of speed-reading is learning where to go for the meat. By eliminating the superfluous text, and by using a few other handy tricks, one can actually speed up the reading process. But where does increased comprehension come in?

Speed-reading is an intense activity in which you are devoting all of your energy to reading. It is all about concentrated effort, which may sound exhausting, but in the end you will spend less overall time reading by eliminating counterproductive tendencies like drifting mentally to tropical islands as your fingers flip through pages and pages of text. With speed-reading, you aren't slowed down by any 'secondary activity' (eating, watching TV, daydreaming, etc.). We all know the feeling of reading through some text, reaching the end, and realizing that a single idea hasn't been absorbed. You usually end up carefully reading it again, word by word. And invariably you end up drifting off again. Speed-reading, by nature, requires all your attention-so not only do you speed up, you end up absorbing more information.

Without a doubt, speed-reading has certain limitations. You wouldn't necessarily want to proceed at lightning speed when you read for pleasure (ex. fiction or poetry), since a large part of the enjoyment lies in picking up the subtleties of the language. Also, you don't speed-read when you hit a part of the text with important and complex details that you need to retain. But for actually locating the information you need, or for gleaning basic information and details from written text, speed-reading can come in extremely handy.

The only thing keeping you from accelerating your reading speed and plowing through tons of reading material is lack of refined skills. And we are going to explain, step by step, how to acquire the skills so that you can zoom through pages. You don't need a special brain, an innate talent, or days of training to master these skills.