The largest misconception about speed reading is that there simply isn’t all that much comprehension going on. After all, losing out on the meaning or the presence of a single word can often have disastrous consequences. Obviously, then , the number one thing to consider when you think about reading faster is that you need to do speed reading with comprehension – to do so otherwise is to waste your time.
Fortunately, if you follow my advice and you only use speed reading on nonfiction material, the loss of comprehension is not necessarily something that you need to actively worry about. Nonfiction materials are generally written in a very straightforward manner, and “meaning reversers,” such as ‘not’, which change the meaning of how the rest of the sentence would be interpreted, are usually in familiar places, and sometimes are bolded, italicized, or in some other way made apparent.
In addition, you need to look for transition words. ‘However’ is a classic example. It doesn’t say ‘not’ but it implies that the opposite of something is true. ‘On the other hand’ and ‘therefore’ are other examples of this. The former is useful for describing something and it’s opposite, while the second implies a cause and effect relationship. Identifiying these right away can really help you to read more clearly, since these kinds of transitional phrases are very much a part of advanced reading materials, and what’s more, they are often the kind of thing that is not elaborated on, so if you don’t catch it the first time, you’re liable to miss it altogether.
Speed reading with comprehension isn’t impossible, in fact, it’s quite often the norm. Keep your brain working, eliminate distractions, and actively search for meaning and main ideas as you read, and the text will start to come to life for you.