By absolute standards, people are slow readers. Yet, they differ widely in reading rates. Some gulp books by taking in a hundred words or more within a minute; others plod along through weeks or more. However, there is nothing to prove that slow readers retain and comprehend the reading matter better.

Now, it is a fact that the reading rate can be improved by exercise. During the Second World War, British psychologists developed a technique by which people could be taught to identify enemy airplanes in an instant. Thousands of Englishmen could spot a German plane from a faint silhouette at a glance. This prompted some investigators to look for techniques that would teach people to read faster. For the first time this was done at Harvard University in the United States after the Second World War, and classes were organized for businessmen wishing to learn fast reading. Now, such classes are conducted at many factories, offices and firms in many countries.

A widely held opinion is that when a person reads, his eyes sweep smoothly across the page. Actually, during an hour of continuous reading, his eyes remain fixed for an average of 57 minutes, and only move in the remaining three minutes. The greater the number of words the reader can cover during a stop and the better he comprehends them, the faster the reading. Precisely this goal is sought in training people to read fast. With appropriate techniques and simple gadgets, your reading rate can be stepped up five to ten times or even more.

It appears that fast reading should be started at school when children have not yet picked up bad reading habits (especially sub vocalizing), that is the tendency to form words with their vocal chords. It is a well-known fact that a drawing, a diagram or a photograph will usually carry more information than a printed text taking up the same area. A person grasps this graphic information all at a time. This ability is mainly utilized in technical publications, but not to the full extent yet. In all probability, a happy combination of printed text and graphic matter can be found for each class of information and for each bracket of readers to give a maximum rate of information input to a person’s brain. Coupled with fast reading, this may raise the rate of information input tens or even hundreds of times.