While going about our daily lives, many of us will spend a considerable portion of our time communicating with others, whether in person or in writing, during meetings or presentations. Although, it may sound surprising, learning to speed read will actually enable us to enhance the way we communicate with other people in a significant way.
Speed reading isn’t just about being able to read faster, it’s also about improving comprehension and recall – and being able to pinpoint and extract valuable information from reading material.
So how does this impact on communication?
It is said that, in the information age, power belongs to those who have knowledge and can use it. Well, being able to speed read helps you become extraordinarily well informed in your profession, your studies, your interests, world news and trends. You can comprehend, remember and implement huge amounts of information – all skills that contribute to excellent communication. On top of this, speed reading trains you to glean the most vital bits of information from material, information that others may well have overlooked.
So when you’re communicating with people at work, in school or in a personal setting, you have the power to contribute great ideas and insights and have the up-to-date knowledge to back up what you say. For this reason, speed reading also contributes to greater confidence and success in meetings and presentations; with all your knowledge behind you, you’re able to coolly and convincingly ‘get to the heart of the matter’ and respond to questions more readily. Furthermore, your written communications such as emails, memos and reports will become much more persuasive.
Another important way that speed reading contributes to effective communication is through expanding your vocabulary of words. Vocabulary forms the basis of communication competence. Study results have shown that people who have powerful vocabularies have more effective communication skills and tend to be more successful in life. Speed reading consistently exposes you to new words through the array of documents, books and news articles that you’re able to process. Over time, you can build an arsenal of power words and anecdotes that you can draw from when liaising with others. What’s more, the improvement of vocabulary is historically one of the most important factors in raising levels of intelligence. So, when you communicate, the people around you will begin to perceive you as more intelligent and you’ll be far more likely to receive the response you want.
When you break it down, reading is essentially a communication skill in itself and one that, fortunately, can be improved by practice. Most of us are capable of reading much faster than we typically do. By choosing to master the skill of speed reading, you’ll be able to comprehend information more effectively and converse more intelligently in any social or professional situation.
The result – you become a better and more convincing communicator.