Learn the Difference Between Speed Reading and Effective Reading, Which is Better?
BrainRead – Effective Speed Reading – Reading like the Swedish
I wanted to write articles that resonated with my readers. So, I asked some of my connections on LinkedIn, what kinds of questions about reading nonfiction books they wanted answered. I got about 11 responses. One connection wanted to know the difference between speed reading and effective reading.
A few years ago, I talked a lot about the importance of being able to read a book faster. And I even attended a speed reading workshop. I added several speed reading browser Chrome extensions. The ability to digest books faster is important because all of us are drowning in information. We have to find a way to work our way through important documents quickly.
As I’ve read more books, experimented with tools, and become wiser, I realized that you didn’t have to speed read to digest a book in less time. Now I talk more about effective reading. In this article, I will explain the difference between speed reading and effective reading and you can decide for yourself which is better for you.
This post is based on my opinion and experience. So I want to make that very clear to the reader. There is lots more information you can find on the internet, but this is what I’m presenting to you.
Have you read?
Best Speed Reading Method? BrainRead by Göran Askeljung
Difference Between Speed Reading and Effective Reading: Why It’s Important to Know How to Digest Information Faster
McKinsey Global Institute released the report, The future of women at work: Transitions in the age of automation. Artificial intelligence technologies will have a devastating impact on women. Many of these women will have to up-skill if they want to take home a salary.
“Between 40 million and 160 million women globally may need to transition between occupations by 2030, often into higher-skilled roles. To weather this disruption, women (and men) need to be skilled, mobile, and tech-savvy, but women face pervasive barriers on each, and will need targeted support to move forward in the world of work.”
This means that professionals will have to learn skills faster. There are tons of good books waiting for you to read them. There’s no way you’ll get through them all. However, you can get through a lot more if you know how to read more effectively.
Definition of Speed Reading
Wikipedia defines speed reading as
“Any of several techniques used to improve one's ability to read quickly.”
It’s a simple definition, but it works well. Don’t you think?
3 Speed Reading Principles
- Not Re-reading What You’ve Read: If you’re reading a passage in a book and discover that you can’t remember what you just read, your natural inclination is to start reading the passage again. But don’t do that. Just continue to read and allow your brain to figure out what the passage is about.
- Minimizing Subvocalization: Subvocalization is saying the words as you read them. When you speed read, one strategy is for you to stop doing that. Or try to do it less.
- Chunking Words: If you’re from the western world, when you learned to read. You read one world at a time from left to right. In speed reading, you read chunks of words instead of one word. There are apps that can train you to read multiple words at the same time. And the premise is that you will read faster without compromising comprehension.
How to Speed Read
There are many apps, books, training programs and so on that are designed to teach you how to read faster. That’s not a bad thing, if you’re not understanding less of what you read. It makes no sense to speed read if you explain what you just read. The creator of the HyperLearning course highly recommends the book, Triple Your Reading Speed. I haven’t read this book yet, though I own it. At some point I will get to it because it’s good to have different tools in your toolkit.
I’ve read BrainRead
and I recommend it. I need to review the text and do the exercises again. The Swedes are among the fastest readers in the world. And they became that way because they have to read subtitles on TV shows. They have to do it quickly so they don’t miss anything. There aren’t enough people in the country for English film makers and program creators to invest in translating a film or a show.
The author, Göran Askeljung was born in Sweden, so he is qualified to write a book on speed reading. The book includes many speed reading drills for you to practice to increase your reading speed.
I took both High Speed Learning and PhotoReading. The process that you’re using in these courses isn’t considered actually reading. You prepare your mind to read and then you flip through the pages up the book right side up and upside down. Your subconscious mind is paying attention to the information. To access the information you read, you need to have a strategy for activating the information – pull it from your subconscious into your conscious mind.
Definition of Effective Reading
This is not an official term, it’s one that I use. It’s more about reading intelligently. There is a famous Francis Bacon quote that explains to you how to read a book. And it gives you insight into how to read more effectively.
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”
The quote essentially tells you that all books are not meant to be read cover-to-cover. Therefore, in my opinion, effective reading is reading as much of a nonfiction book you need to, to get the maximum understanding of the text.
Some folks will say to follow the 80/20 Rule. That means you read 20 percent of the book to understand 80 percent of it. In the PhotoReading course that I mentioned earlier, I learned that only between four and eleven percent of a book has essential information. That’s quite low, but it makes a lot of sense.
Traditional publishers have word counts. That means that there are many times that authors have to add extra information to honour the word count. Some of that extra information does not aid your understanding of the text. So why should you read those extra pages?
The skill you must develop to read effectively is to quickly determine which sections of a nonfiction book deserve your attention.
How to Read Effectively
To read a nonfiction effectively there is a process that you need to follow. Doing so will save you a lot of time.
- Write down your one-sentence purpose for reading a book.
- Preview the book first to decide which sections to focus on. Sections to look at include: Preface, Foreword, Introduction, Table of Contents, Index.
- Distinguish between essential information and non-essential information. Essential information is any information that aligns with your reason for reading a book in the first place.
When you learn to read effectively, you can save yourself a lot of time because you’re reading only the important section.
Learn the Difference Between Speed Reading and Effective Reading, Which is Better?
For the purposes of the article, I’ve simplified things. And there’s a lot more that I could say about speed reading and effective reading. You have enough information to decide. For the overachievers, perhaps you’d like to do both. And that’s okay. If that’s the case, please read BrainRead
by Göran Askeljung and/or Triple Your Reading Speed: 4th Edition
by Wade Cutler.
Both books come highly recommended. But since I’ve only read BrainRead, if you have time to read only one of the books, my preference is for you to read that one. I like how the author learned how to speed read and I think he has a lot of things to teach you.
How Avil Can Help You!
If you do not want to gamify your reading, I invite you to Join the Performance Accelerator Plan that walks you through the process of learning key skills and more. You’ll be reading books to build skills and develop intercultural awareness. Get more reading and learning tips here.
In December 2020, I published two books on Amazon. I would greatly appreciate your support if you bought my two short e-books Read 30 Books in 30 Days Like Francis Bacon and Performance Accelerator Plan: Guide to Learning and Mastering Key Skills for the Future.
Read 30 Books in 30 Days Like Francis Bacon is not about speed reading. It’s about approaching every book differently and reading only the sections that align with your purpose.
The Performance Accelerator Plan book is a stripped-down version of the paid reading challenge of the same name. Obviously, you won’t get all the resources that come with the program that I sell on my website. But if you are a self-directed learner, it will help you tremendously.
If someone clicks on a link and buy something from Amazon, the company will pay me a small commission.
