Be a Goal-Oriented Reader
No matter what the endeavor, your chances of succeeding are
better if you set goals for yourself. This fact of life is why speed
readers set goals for themselves when they read. If you ask your-
self, “Why am I reading this and what do I want to get from this
reading?” before you start reading a book or article, you’re able to
read much more aggressively.
Asking that simple question makes your reading much more pro-
ductive because you establish goals when you read. As you read
along, you can skim or skip material that doesn’t help you reach
your goals. And if you come to paragraphs that get to the heart of
why you’re reading, you can read those paragraphs more carefully
and get more out of your reading. Chapter 10 helps you figure out
how to get what you need and get out.
Enlarge Your Vocabulary
To continue to be a speed reader, you must always work to enlarge
your vocabulary. The larger your vocabulary is, the faster you can
read because you don’t have to stop and ponder as many unknown
words.
Chapter 12 explains how you acquire new words and how to
actively seek out vocab expansion. It also presents common pre-
fixes, roots, and suffixes to help you decode new words as you
encounter them.
Discovering vocabulary
words by meaning
No matter how arcane or hard to pronounce it is, you can pick
up and retain a new word if it has meaning for you. Studies show
that the best way to acquire more vocabulary words is by real-
world experience, not artificial memorization. When you need a
new word, you learn it. This ability explains why most people’s
vocabulary ceases growing after adolescence — they have fewer
experiences that require them to learn new words. By age 5, most
children have a vocabulary of about 4,000 words; by age 7, they
know 20,000 words; and by age 10 they know 35,000. After that, the
world isn’t as new as it was before — kids have less to discover —
and the average person’s vocabulary grows at a much slower rate.
For example, consider the case of the woman who set out to become
a gourmet cook. In the beginning, the names of cooking utensils like
zester, wok, lamé, and passatutto were incomprehensible to her. After
she got her hands on these utensils and used them in her kitchen,
however, she could pass you the zester without blinking an eye.
Absorbing these new words wasn’t hard for her because she literally
had hands-on experience with these cooking utensils, and knowing
their names was necessary to her goal of becoming a gourmet cook.
Or consider what happens when you become ill. Because your health
is at stake, you soon become intimately acquainted with hard-to-
understand words from the medical profession that previously meant
nothing to you. You want to master the words so you can intelligently
discuss your health with your doctor, and you’re soon able to throw
these words around almost as well as your doctor can.
Taking knowledge level into account
Every book and article assumes that the reader has a certain
amount of knowledge of the topic at hand. For example, I wrote the
For Dummies book you’re currently reading on the assumption that
you’re a beginning speed reader. If I were writing this book for an
audience of reading educators, I would assume they already have a
background in speed-reading techniques, and I wouldn’t spend as
much time describing speed-reading fundamentals.
Consider yourself lucky if every article and book you read is writ-
ten to your knowledge level. Usually you have to read above your
knowledge level or below it because the material is more complex
than you want or too simple for your needs.
After you’ve had a taste of the article or book you’re reading, con-
sider what knowledge level it’s written to and change your reading
accordingly:
✓ If the reading material is too complex for your taste, read a
little more slowly. You’re likely to encounter terminology and
background information that you don’t know.
✓ If the reading material is simpler than what you need, read
quickly and skim where you can. Read more aggressively than
usual and cherry-pick information from the text.
