How to Read a Book in Ten Minutes: Speed reading is for Everyone

Many people balk when they are told that they can become at least conversant on a book in less than ten minutes by speed reading. Then I prove it to them. I take a book that they give me and apply the techniques that I have learned over the years, and at the end of my ten minutes of speed reading, I am often more versed in what I have just read than they are after spending a month reading the book.

Speed reading books is a skill that every high school and college student, every business professional, and every parent should develop. With it, a person can read through books very quickly, and can retain much more of the information than if they had spent months slowly plodding through the text word by word.

How does speed reading work?
The heart of speed reading is essentially creating a scaffold (organizational structure) for what you are about to read. By planning for your learning, your brain is able to take hold of a great deal of information very rapidly.

There are 4 steps to speed reading using this basic method.

1. Attempt to memorize the table of contents. When you begin your speed reading, start at the beginning. Most nonfiction books do a very good job of telling the reader what they are going to tell them in the text of the book. It does this through the chapter and section headings.

Spend about 2 minutes scanning the table of contents. Note any sections that seem particularly interesting, or that seem especially relevant to you. Try to remember all of the categories in the table of contents, because you will use them throughout the rest of your speed reading. Once you have done this, you will be able to use the table of contents as a skeleton to which the meat of the book will be affixed.

2. Quickly peruse the book, making note of all headings, pictures, offset comments, and bold words. This part of your speed reading is where you place all of the vital organs in your skeleton. You need to know where everything fits in the whole.

Don't spend time dipping into the sections to read something that seems interesting just yet. Before you can put everything in its proper place, it is important that you have all of the pieces in place on your skeleton.

3. Return to the table of contents. Scan over the table of contents again. This time when you read the table of contents, try to remember the headings that were associated with each chapter, and use those headings to construct the whole book in your mind.

This is where speed reading starts to tie everything together. It is a good idea to write down what each chapter was about, what questions you might have about it, and what seems to be most important to you.

At this point you should have everything you need to understand the basics of whatever book you are reading. The final two steps will serve to solidify the information you have received.

4. Go back and dig in to what you want to understand better. The purpose of this step in the speed reading process is to give you a better understanding of the parts of the book which are most important to YOU. Most books will have quite a bit of information that you already know. If you already have an organizational structure for the book, you can identify those sections that would just be a rehash of old information and get to the sections that matter most.

This step in the speed reading process can take place at any time if you took the effort to make your own outline of the book as described in step 3. You should already have the gist of the book and be able to discuss it with someone of a basic level.

5. Talk about it with someone. Find a friend or family member to explain the book to. As you explain it, allow them to ask questions. Their questions will show you the pieces of the book that you missed, or that you simply didn't understand.

In order to retain the most out of speed reading a book, it is important that you ensure that you can remember the topic of the book and its structure. Talking about it helps solidify your understanding and allows you to hold on to what was most important in what you read.

Also, keep your outline. Whenever you want to remember something that was in the book, refer to the outline first, not the table of contents. The outline from your speed reading should represent the way the book is organized in your mind, and will allow you to find what you are looking for much more quickly.

I hope that these speed reading tips prove useful to you as you continue to learn. Never stop reading, and you will never run out of useful things to say and do. This is a skill that should be applied to any form of reading, but is often forgotten when a person is faced with the daunting task of reading an entire book. Apply these to your regular reading, and your experience will pay off more than you ever expected.

Note: there are many different forms of speed reading, and not all take this same format. You should try different forms until you find something that works for you.