TOP Speed Reading Techniques to Help You Read Faster

Have you ever stared at a page for like 10 minutes only to realize that your eyes moved but your brain didn't? You're not alone. The average person reads about 200 words per minute. That's slower than we speak and way slower than we think. That means most people are reading in slow motion, mentally dozing off mid-paragraph, rereading the same sentence over and over again, maybe even forgetting what they just read. But what if I told you there are simple science-backed techniques that could help you read much faster with much better comprehension? In this video, I'm going to teach you the same speed reading methods that I've taught to CEOs, actors, athletes, and high performers and learners all around the world. By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly how to break the bad habits that slow down your reading, train your eyes and brain to work together. You'll learn how to improve your focus and your retention, and you'll read with purpose, not just page numbers. Definitely stay to the end because these are the tools that will change your reading and change your life. So you ready? Let's dive right in. So why is reading so difficult? Why is it hard for so many people? People because most people never learned how to read as adults. They're still reading like they did in elementary school the last time they were taught, word by word, and they're saying the words to themselves. This is called subvocalization. This is the habit of pronouncing words in your head while you read. And while it might feel comforting, it slows you down. It slows you down a lot. Because if you could only read as fast as you could talk or speak, that means your reading speed is limited to your talking speed, not your thinking speed. When you read out loud or in your mind, you're limited to the speed of your internal voice, which happens to be about 150 to 200 words per minute. But did you know your brain can process upwards of 900+ words per minute? That's a massive gap. Another common problem is something called regression. Regression is when your eyes backtrack. It's like backskipping. Have you ever found yourself rereading the same sentence because you weren't paying attention? Or you reread a whole line, you go back and skip words, go back and reread words, and it takes more time and it interrupts your flow and your comprehension. So it doesn't just waste time, it trains your brain not To focus right. And let's not forget about the big one, distraction. I mean, we live in a world full of distractions, social media, text messages, app notifications. Even the slightest noise can reset your attention. Every time you lose focus, your brain, it has to reorientate, kind of like, uh, like starting a car over and over again. Reading becomes more exhausting, right? It takes so much more work, not because the material is difficult or too hard, but usually because your brain is stuck in a slow, outdated gear. So it's time to upgrade that. So let's talk about some of the quick reading principles. So traditional speed reading has often been associated to skimming or skipping words, getting the gist of what you read. When we train at Fortune 500 companies or top universities, uh, or everybody from different ages and stages, and we have Students online in every country in the world—they don't want to just get the gist of what they read; they want to read it, right? Because we train doctors and attorneys and financial advisors. You don't want your doctor to get the gist of what she's reading. So it's definitely not about being at a frantic pace. It's definitely not about rushing through the pages. You're only going to read as fast as you can understand. It's really about training your mind to absorb more information. With greater ease, with greater focus, and far less friction 'cause you're mentally fit. It's like somebody who's physically fit, they could hike up a mountain easier than somebody who is not physically fit. Same thing with mental fitness. That person who could go and go up that hill or that mountaintop, they're trained. Their body has energy. It also has a level of technique. So let's break it down together. These are some of the foundational principles and techniques that will help you build real speed and better comprehension. We go into this much, much more in our Kwik Reading program. You could find out and get a discount at kwikreading.com, where I'm giving you quick tips here, and they're great tips. And if you want to make it a habit, you want to make this a skill set, a tool set, then I need 3 weeks with you, 15 minutes a day. So that is how you read. It becomes second nature. You're just reading 3 times faster. So let's start by reducing one of the biggest speed traps in reading. Let's go to subvocalization. Here's a quick experiment to show you how your voice is holding you back. Count from 1 to 10 in your mind. Do it silently. Now try reciting the alphabet out loud at the same time. Notice how you can't do both at once. That's because your brain can only say one stream of a language at a time. And if that voice is busy narrating your reading, it might be clogging up your cognitive bandwidth. So, think about it. Do you have to say words like New York City to understand what New York City means? No, you know it by sight. Like when you see a stop sign, you don't say to yourself, stop, but you know exactly what it means, right? 95% of the words you see when you're reading are what they call sight words. You know them by sight. You don't have to pronounce them by sound. So how do you reduce it? How can you better fix it? You train your brain to rely more on your eyes, not so much on your voice. And here are a couple of quick tips. Remember, these are tips. If I had you in the Kwik Reading Program, I could help train it and reduce it every single day. One thing that works for some people is chewing on something. Maybe it's, you're chewing on gum, or maybe you're humming while reading. What does this do? This keeps your speech-related muscles slightly occupied, which helps quiet your inner narrator, your subvocalizer. It breaks the automatic pattern that your mind has built around reading out loud. If not out loud, then in your mind. The second quick tip is read faster than you can speak. You could push the pace slightly faster than your comfort zone. You'll notice that your inner voice won't be able to keep up, and that's the point. Let your eyes take the lead. Now, at first, your comprehension may dip slightly, but your brain will quickly adapt and it will recalibrate. Just like building a muscle, you give it some resistance and then your muscles adapt. It gets stronger. So will your mental, your reading muscles. Next quick tip, it might work for you to listen to music. Now, it's different for each person. Some people find music distracting, especially if it has lyrics. For me, I use classical music. Classical music, especially from the Baroque era, helps me to really focus and it can kind of drown out some of that subvocalization. So if you find yourself slipping into more subvocalization, try playing low-volume instrumental music. This gives your auditory system something else to focus on, reducing the temptation to narrate internally all the words. Some words you'll say, right? Especially words you haven't seen before or that are more difficult or unfamiliar. Another quick tip is to use a visual pacer. One of the fastest ways to boost your reading speed and your focus immediately is to use a visual pacer. It could be your finger, it could be a pen, it could be a highlighter, it could be the mouse on your computer or a ruler to guide your eyes along the lines as you read. It gives your eyes a fixed target because what moves in your environment, you're going to pay attention to. Because your visual focus leads your mental focus. Remember that. Your visual focus leads your mental focus. So when you're using your finger as an example to go across the page, your attention's being pulled through the information as opposed to your attention being pulled apart. And this keeps your eyes moving smoothly and reduces the chances of what? Backskipping. You know, the regression, the rereading the same line, the same words over and over again without realizing it. Using a visual pacer also helps to minimize distraction. As I mentioned, we have students in every country in the world in our Kwik Reading Program. And what we've seen is that using a visual pacer can increase reading speed by 25, 50%. Some people will actually 100% increase even without any additional training. It's simple, it's free, and it just works. Try it for yourself. You could challenge yourself to expand your eye span, what they call your peripheral vision. If you want to become a faster, more effective reader, you want to upgrade and retrain how your eyes move across the page. And that starts with expanding your eye span, your peripheral vision, so you could take in more information. The number of words your eyes can take in during Each fixation. A fixation is like an eye stop. It's like you're going, going, and you stop. But most people, let's say there's 10 words per line, they go on, they hit one fixation on the first word, then they jump to another and another. They have 10 fixations, stop, start, stop, starts. As opposed to what if you could look at one word and relax your eyes and see the word to the left and to the right? Then you're catching 3 words with one fixation. So So it only takes you maybe 2 or 3 stops to get across the page. Way more efficient. Just think of it like this way. Words are made up of groups of letters. And over time, your brain has learned to recognize entire words instead of spelling them out. You don't see the individual letters anymore. You see the word. You don't sound out coffee or apple letter by letter. You see the entire word as one unit. Kwik Reading works the same way, but instead of recognizing groups of letters as a word, you start recognizing groups of words as a single unit of meaning. Does that make sense? So instead of reading, she walked to the store, as 4 separate words, your brain now can learn to take that as one phrase. And this isn't just a theory. It's backed by eye-tracking research. Studies from the University of South Alabama and other cognitive science labs found that trained readers can increase their eye span, allowing them to capture 2, 3, 4, even 5 words per fixation instead of just 1. That means fewer pauses, less backtracking, and significantly faster reading speeds without a drop of comprehension. Why does this work? Because of your peripheral vision, the area of your sight outside your direct focus. You have foveal vision, which is focused vision, and peripheral vision. Your peripheral vision is far more powerful than you realize. When you train it, you can actually read more of the beginning, middle, and end of a line with fewer eye stops. So you're much more efficient. And remember, you don't need to land your eyes on every word to understand the sentence. Your brain, it fills in the gaps. Just like how you can recognize a street sign, a logo, or even a blurry sentence without reading each part individually. This is how expert readers operate. They zoom out, scanning phrases like on the kitchen table or just before dinner or New York City as quickly as possible, as single visual Units. And guess what? Your brain really loves this. It engages more deeply because it's being asked to solve a pattern, and your brain, it's wired for pattern recognition. So how and where do you start? As you read, I want you to consciously group 2 to 3 words together. Let your eyes bounce less, but scan and take in much more. And avoid fixating or pausing on every single word. Trust your eyes to catch the meaning and the context. With daily practice, your reading will start to feel more fluid. It becomes more natural, more organic, like watching phrases glide across your mind instead Instead of stumbling through a maze of words. Over time, your eye span will begin to soften in a way, kind of stretch, and your reading speed will rise right along with it. But remember, reading faster isn't about rushing. It's about reducing friction between your eyes and your mind and your own understanding. And expanding your eye span is one of the most powerful ways to do that. Just that. Now, let's talk about the other part besides reading faster. Let's talk about the other half of smart reading or quick reading, which is comprehension and retention. You probably had this happen. You read an entire page only to realize you have no idea what you just read. Then you go back and reread it and you still don't know what you just read. How embarrassing, right? That's not because you have a bad memory. It's probably because you weren't mentally engaged. Reading isn't passive. It has to be active. To actually retain and remember what you read, your brain needs a reason to care. And that's where intentional focus comes in. Before you even open the book, just take a moment to prime your brain. And you could do that by asking yourself questions like, what do I want to get out of this? What questions do I want answered? How will I apply this information to my life? How does this relate to what I already know? These questions trigger a part of your brain called your reticular activating system, RAS for short. This is your brain's filter. Once it knows what's important, it starts to highlight and prioritize relevant information. It's like a guidance system. It starts shining a spotlight and like, there's the answer, there's the answer, there's the answer. And it starts to filter out The noise. It filters out all the rest. It's the same reason that you start seeing the same car everywhere right after you buy it. You've instructed your brain, this matters, and now it finds it everywhere. You can do the same thing intentionally with your learning, with what you are reading. And once your RAS is primed, your focus sharpens. You're no longer scanning random words. You're on a mission. Your brain is on a mission. Your mind is hunting for answers. You're reading with pure intention and laser-like focus. And with that focus comes comprehension and retention. And when your brain is more fully engaged, comprehension and retention go way up. Now let's talk about how to actively boost that comprehension as you read. Number 1, don't over-highlight. This is a little pet peeve of mine. Marking every sentence trains your brain to rely on color instead of understanding. And if you highlight everything, like your book glows in the dark, and when everything is important, then nothing becomes important. Highlight only the essentials, the sentences that trigger curiosity, emotion, or an insight or a breakthrough. Then summarize what you just read. Here's the key: in your own words. After each chapter or major section, take a pause and write down a few bullet points. What do you remember? This is active recall. Or record it on a voice note on your phone explaining what you just learned. This helps transfer the knowledge from short-term memory into more long-term storage. And isn't that what you want? Teach it to someone else. After you took notes or voice notes, explain it. It's called the explanation effect. When you explain something out loud, even if it's just to your reflection in the mirror, you immediately identify what you understand versus What you don't. Again, this process is called the explanation effect. It's been shown to dramatically boost learning and retention. Do you wanna multiply your results? Then pair the speed reading tips that you learned today with smart brain habits. Just makes sense, right? Simple things like hydrate. This might sound too simple to really matter, but even just 2% dehydration can impair your focus, your memory, and your processing speed. Your brain, remember, is about 75% water. If you're running low, your mental performance and your learning, your reading takes a hit. So before you pick up that book, remember to pick up a glass of water. Number 2, remember to prioritize your sleep. You can do all the reading in the world, but if you're not sleeping well, your brain can't store and recall the information well. Memory consolidation. This is the process of locking in what you learn, and it happens while you sleep. If you want to remember more of what you read, make sure you get quality rest. Make it a non-negotiable. Then, you know, I'm a big fan of feeding your brain. What you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. So think about the omega-3 fatty acids that are often found in foods like salmon, walnuts, flaxseed. These are essential for your brain health. Studies show they support memory, cognitive flexibility, and even your mood. And of course, try to mitigate and avoid distractions. You, you want to, to feed your focus and starve your distractions. Turn off those notifications. Put your phone on airplane mode. Create your distraction-free reading zone. The fewer decisions your brain has to make about whether or not to check your phone, the more energy it has and it could use to actually focus and learn. And shift your mindset. You want to stop saying, I'm a bad reader. That's not a random thought. It's an identity script. And as long as you keep repeating it, your brain will work to prove it true. But when you shift that narrative, when you start saying, I'm training my brain to read faster every day, Something incredible happens. You give your brain, you give yourself permission to grow. There you have it. My suggestion, start with one tip today. Track your progress and watch how your confidence grows, as well as your speed and understanding grows with it. If you made it this far, this means you're committed to your own self-growth, your own learning, And that's something to really be proud of. So my question for you is, what book is on your reading list right now? Or which book would you recommend others in our community start to read? Let me know in the comments. I speed read, I quick read every single one, of course. And don't forget to like and subscribe for more accelerated learning and brain performance tips. And if you want to go deep in mastering your Reading, I encourage you go to quickreading.com. K W I K reading dot com. It will change your brain. It will change your life. It's not tips, but it's real training. In 21 days, 15 minutes a day, I will show you how to be in the top one percent of all readers. So until our next episode, I can't wait to see you. Until then, stay. I'm in this.