Improving Your Reading Speed and Comprehension

Take a test to find out how fast reader you might be! http://www.readingsoft.com/

Medical students are assigned a large amount of cognitively challenging information to read. In one medical school, from 2009 to 2010, during 71 weeks in 12 modules of preclinical basic science curriculum, students were assigned 29,239 pages to read. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21785317

Therefore, increasing speed and comprehension of reading will be a helpful tool in medical and any professional school.

If you find yourself reading slowly, consider the following:

1. Get your eyes checked with an eye-doctor.
2. If you hear yourself pronouncing words as you read, you will need to eliminate that habit. Focus on key words or ideas when you force yourself to read faster.
3. Don’t regress or reread words. You might use a pointer that will prevent your eyes from skipping back.
4. An eye can span 4-5 words at the time or 1.5 inches. Try to expand your gaze. When you come to the end of line, let your peripheral vision take over, so you can quickly move to the next line.

Adapted from Learning Sources Center, University of Utah School of Medicine and Texas A&M Medicine Texas A& M Health Science Center