How to Speed Read a Magazine
Before you start reading anything in the magazine you want to sift through the table of contents and determine what needs to be read. Circle the articles in the table of contents that you plan to read. You can cross out the article after it has been read.
Let’s start with this basic assumption: You can read something faster if you are familiar with it. Most people would agree with this statement. The problem is that most of the material you read is not familiar to you, which is obviously on of the reasons why you would want to read it.
So the idea here is to somehow get familiar with the material before actually reading it. Think of this as warming up before you read, just like you would before you exercise. The can easily familiarize yourself with an article and “speed read” it by following three simple steps.
Step #1 - Read the First and Last Paragraph
In well written material, the first paragraph is usually an introduction to what you are about to read in the article. Similarly, the last paragraph should summarize the article. So if we read the first and last paragraph we should, at the very least come away with a strong sense of what the main idea is in the article.
Step #2 - Read the First Sentence of Every Paragraph
Wouldn’t it be nice to know all of the main ideas in an article before actually reading it? Since most well written paragraphs are structured with the main idea as the first sentence, we can read the first sentence of every paragraph in the article and come away with a lot of information about the article before even reading it.
Step #3 - Read the Entire Article
Think about the last two steps you did. You read the first and last paragraph, and then the first sentence of every paragraph. At this point, you should have a pretty strong idea of what this article is going to be about. The only thing you’re missing are the details, which you will now get as you read.
Remember we made the assumption that if you are familiar with something, you should be able to read it faster. At this we should definitely be familiar with what we are about to read. So we should approach it more confidently and naturally read it faster.
If you are resistant toward going faster, it could be because you are worried you may miss something. Try to fight that resistance and force yourself to go a little faster than you normally would through the material. You’ll probably find yourself picking up more than you expected.
Tags: magazines, rapid reading, speed reading
