Want speed reading software that really works? So do countless others out there who are tired of spending hours on homework or studying up for college exams. As someone who used to be a slow reader myself, I can honestly count days worth of saved time, through my college years alone, thanks to working with one of the many speed reading programs available to you today.
We here at free-speed-reading.com absolutely recommend speed reading software as the number one best way to learn speed reading. It’s better than taking a course, it’s better than learning it yourself, and it’s better than reading a book.
Does Speed Reading Software Work?
Speed reading software has been shown to increase your reading speed from around 240 words per minute (the average American adult’s reading speed) to around 800 words per minute in less than three month’s time. Similar results have been seen using all of the products below, even the ones that we think are inferior to the competition. This more than triples the speed that many people are reading at, with no loss of comprehension at all. In fact, teaching comprehension skills is one of the many features of most speed reading programs. That can save you hours of study time, and will prove to be a skill that will carry over into the working world as well.
What you should look for in a speed reading software is a lot of practice exercises, the ability to track your progress as you work through the program, and relevant practice. You don’t necessarily want to have a program that will drill you on “eye exercise” as being helpful alternatives to actually practicing with texts. These exercises might help you move your eyes faster, but they do not help teach you any of the other skills of a speed reader, namely, the ability to process more thoughts and make sense of them.
With that said, here are our choices for excellent pieces of speed reading software:
Speed Reading Softwares
Speed Reader X – This system, which you’ll also see listed under our recommendations for speed reading courses is a two-parter as it includes practice exercises and tracking through their member’s only website, and they offer the tutorials and tips that you’d normally find only in a speed reading course. Again, there are much better options if you have the money, but even just as is, the Speed Reader X course is only $40 if you purchase all of the upgrades (and $30 if you get just the speed reading software), and that’s a deal and a half.
16 Minute Speed Reading Audio – If you know the basics, and simply cannot get a handle on implementing them, then I would recommend this program. It’s similar to those vocabulary building programs which you play when you fall asleep, where you’ll wake up knowing new words. I think it works pretty well, though it’s certainly not for everyone.
QuickEye Speed Reading – This software is a little more basic than what you get from Speed Reader X, but it’s got a lot going for it. There are lessons and practice activities that are pretty good, and it includes a virtual library of good speed reading advice.
AceReader – This is the program that has the prestige of being called the most widely used software program for teaching speed reading. It is used by Educate, Inc. and Sylvan Learning Centers in their study skills program to help students practice the tips they teach. In general, this is decent software, but all it does is track your progress, it doesn’t have any lessons to teach you anything about speed reading. While it’s an OK solution, we don’t think that it’s your best option. Given that it costs more than both of the top two solutions, we would recommend that you look elsewhere.
EyeQ – EyeQ Speed Reading software is pretty much a waste of your time. This software is entirely focused on giving you “eye exercises” which are supposed to help you learn to take in more information quickly. In reality, the only thing they’re good for is giving you a headache. We adamantly do not recommend this speed reading software.
How do you choose speed reading software
One question that seems to be asked of us quite often is how to choose a single piece of speed reading software. Each one of the above is radically different. So what should you look for?
We have basically boiled all of the activities down into four different features.
Tracking – Almost all of the different software tools offer performance tracking, which helps you by showing your improvement over time. This is the major reason why you want to have speed reading software over practicing by yourself. Again, if your chosen speed reading software doesn’t offer this, you should probably be looking at other options. All of the pieces of software above offer some form of tracking.
Practice activities – Not only do you need a lot of different opportunities to practice speed reading built in, but these activities need to be varied and different. This is the primary reason why we chose Speed Reader X and Quick Eye as our #1 and #2 choices. They have a wide variety of different options for practicing reading. Ace Reader basically presents you the text and times you as you read. Speed Reader X will teach you something, then offer you an article, then ask questions about it while timing you. Then in other activities, they’ll break down articles word by word, chunk by chunk, or line by line and show you how to read each. Then they’ll show you only the top half of words to help you with word recognition. There are a lot of different ways to learn these techniques.
Teaching Tools – Whether it’s articles,videos or simply reading about speed reading techniques while working on challenges and benchmark tests, a good piece of speed reading software would supplement it’s exercises and practice activities with information on why you’re doing these exercises. Of course, you can use some of our articles to help you out with learning the speed reading techniques, but it’s nicer to have everything in one place.
Eye Exercises – Experts are torn on the effectiveness of eye exercises. We can’t quite make up our mind on whether they are effective or not. EyeQ’s software offers nothing but eye exercises, which is why we don’t recommend it for speed reading enhancement. Despite that, eye exercises in combination with other forms of teaching tools and other types of practice isn’t all that bad. Think of this as kind of a bonus feature as opposed to something that you need to have.