10 Days to Faster Reading | Learn how to zip through books, newspapers, magazines and online-articles

Summary of 10 Days to Faster Reading: Reading fast is a professional and personal asset, it is possible to improve your reading speed significantly by using various techniques and methods, like the use of guides (cards, fingers, pens…) or skimming, scanning and skipping … and plenty of others.

by Abby Marks Beale, 200 pages, published in 2001.

Book chronicle and summary 10 Days to Faster Reading:

The first book of my personal challenge! It’s the first one on the PMBA list because it will supposedly increase our reading speed significantly. I am already a good reader with an average of 400 words per minute and a retention rate of almost 90%.

The author ranks readers in the following way:

But do you know your reading speed? Here is a very interesting test by the Wall Street Journal that not only measure your reading speed, but also your comprehension: click here to assess your reading speed.

“10 Days to Faster Reading” made me realize that everyone reads at a different speed. I made 17 of my friends take the test (yes, really), here are the results:

As you can see, there are two important groups: one group of average readers with 200 to 250 wpm, and another group of good or excellent readers with more than 300 wpm. This survey was only done on a small sample, but it demonstrates that there is a large variation in reading speed between different people.

Obviously, and this is where the author begins, reading fast is an asset in life, and perhaps even more so if you are a student; in the same amount of time, a reader with 400 wpm can read two books and his buddy with 200 wpm can only read one. You can easily imagine what a difference that can make at the end of a single school year.

Reading Fast is an Asset

And even after graduation, there are so many situations – apart from books – where knowing how to read quickly and grasp essential knowledge is an asset: if you need to read a report, or a magazine, or documents, or brochures or whatever else whether for work or for personal reasons.

At work, you will get the edge over a slower reader by accumulating more knowledge when preparing a meeting, for example (again, you will need to correctly process the knowledge you get), and in your personal life by saving time every time you read, allowing you to stay informed, or to relax more.

“10 Days to Faster Reading” is supposed to increase your reading speed. It is divided into 10 chapters, designed to be read in as many days (but you can obviously read it faster, as I did),  all built around a comparison with driving a racing car.

The recommended techniques can be divided primarily into five different categories:

• Challenge the ideas and concepts, which were valid when you learned to read, but no longer apply, to read every word, that you shouldn’t use your fingers or anything else to guide you, etc. This is the main theme of chapter 1.
• Guides: Every chapter teaches a new one. The idea is to guide your eyes with something. This might be your fingers, a business card, a piece of paper, etc. This allows you to force your eyes to go where you want them to, and at the speed you want.
• Everything that has to do with concentration, with your environment, and the reasons why you are reading. Asking yourself simply “what am I expecting from this book? What do I want to find out? What am I going to do with this new knowledge? ” allows you to choose and retain more easily what is important.
• Adapt to what you are reading and the content: you don’t read a novel, a newspaper, or a technical manual in the same way.
• The techniques allow you to determine what not to read: skim, scan, and skip.

Every chapter recommends a text for you to determine your reading speed and your retention rate. This allows you to track your progress.

Book Critique of 10 Days to Faster Reading:

Strong Points of the book 10 Days to Faster Reading:

• Makes you understand that different people have different reading speeds.
• Makes you understand clearly the importance of knowing how to read fast and well (with a good retention rate).
• Provides numerous techniques: everyone needs to figure out which ones suit them and work well for them.
• Every chapter includes a test to measure your progress.

Weak Points of the book 10 Days to Faster Reading:

• The techniques, methods, and tricks become repetitive throughout the chapters.
• I don’t think a good or excellent reader will significantly improve their reading speed with this book.

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