Speed reading

Arrangement of printed text

 

Printers usually arrange paragraphs so that the most important key words fall in the middle 

area of the lines. Because of this, it is very efficient to skim a page concentrating on the 

middle areas. Once you have found the topic sentence within a paragraph, you can quickly 

decide if you wish to read the entire paragraph or have enough of its meaning to proceed 

further. You can therefore minimize the amount of reading you do and concentrate only on 

the parts that are relevant to your needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure:

  Skimming a page along the middle from top to bottom.

Exercise 5-1

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Open your practice book. Your objective here is to skim along the middle of the next four 

paragraphs using the hand as a pointing tool as before. Use the extended hand pointing 

method described earlier. Look for the topic sentence in each of the paragraphs. Move your 

hand from the top of the page to the bottom in a smooth movement. Do not move your hand 

from left to right. Try not to pause as you are moving your hand. Repeat this exercise several 

times as necessary.