Sure, you may not read things as fast as you'd like. But is it really possible to at least double your reading speed?

That's the claim made by many of the speed reading programs on the market. Some systems (such as photo reading) claim that you can read at about a page a second, but most speed reading systems aim to just help you read faster.

So, why speed reading?

Our reading speed - or lack of it - probably goes back to when we first started to read. Most of us read things "out loud" in our head. Some of us even move our lips as we're reading.

In order to speed read, you first need to get out of the habit of reading every word "out loud" in your head. You can practice this easily enough - just read some paragraphs and if you catch your lips moving, stop them from doing so!

Next up, we tend to re-read things. Maybe you weren't sure exactly what something meant, maybe you just lost your place. For whatever reason, re-reading stuff slows us down.

Incidentally, if you don't understand something the first time you read it, the chances are that the author will re-explain it again later in whatever it is you are reading. In fact, most things get explained several times in the course of an article let alone a book, so don't panic if something doesn't make sense at first, it probably will make sense later.

The easiest way to stop losing your place as you read is to use a finger or a pen or a pencil to trace the words as you go along. A bit like the way a karaoke machine works...

Tracing the words as you read them effects your reading speed positively because you don't go back and read words or even whole paragraphs or pages. Which is what often tends to happen when we're reading.

You can also gradually increase your reading speed simply by tracing along the words a bit faster.

Try these simple tricks and you'll be surprised by just how much they can improve the speed you read at.