Improving your reading speed and comprehension

Improving your comprehension

You may be bewildered at the start of a course by the amount of reading you have to do, and its complexity. Don’t worry – this is perfectly normal, and you will soon get used to it.

If you’re struggling, try:

• Start general – read something you know a little about & understand the context of before moving on to more difficult material.
• After reading a few sentences, try summarising it to yourself – if you can do this, then you’ve understood
• Set yourself questions to answer on what you’ve read
• Re-read if necessary, looking up any difficult words you might not understand
• Highlight key words/phrases – this may also help you remember
• Colour-code information to organise ideas – again, a good memory aid

Ask yourself questions to improve your critical thinking.

Don’t just read a text but ask yourself questions as you go. This will get you into the habit of thinking about what you read in a critical way. Ask questions such as:

• What point is the writer making?
• Why is it relevant?
• Do I agree with the writer?
• What lessons can I learn from this?
• Is the argument supported?
• How does it relate to other things I’ve read?

Improving reading speed

Sometimes it’s important to read something in detail and really understand it – in this case speed isn’t so important. However, sometimes you just have a lot of reading to get through and you need to do it quickly.

Finger tracking

Try following a text along a page or screen using your finger, a pointer, or a piece of paper.

Keep it moving forwards and don’t be tempted to look back.

Try to keep moving it faster and make sure your eyes keep up.

Subvocalisation

Have you ever noticed that when you’re reading you are ‘saying’ the words in your head? This means you will only ever read as fast as you can speak.

If you can get out of the habit of doing this, you can improve your reading speed.

Chunking

Try reading 3-5 words at a time.

Seeing only a few words at a time may mean you lose the sense of the passage. However, you may find some of them useful when you need a general understanding and have a lot of reading to get through.