Tips for reading alot of textbooks.

[TokenHerbz]

Hello I have about 4 Text books to read daily, each averaging about 20 pages for about 80 pages a day.

I currently read just under 20 pages an hour, to fully understand the content, which i think is pretty slow.
This is dedicating 4hours outside of school to keep up in class, which is fine but I have a part time job for financial reasons.

Do you recommend i "skim" on working days? or any tips or ideas so I can get this reading done faster because when i stay up late to finish it, (and this morning i still have 20pages to read), i tend to be tired at school and find my self moreso yawning and day dreaming then focused and actively learning, which we ALL KNOW IS BAD!

Just some ideas or tips for a rusty student who's really aiming for high marks, thanks.

[mirhagk]

I can suggest one thing. NAPS! Seriously, according the the Canadian Pilot's Handbook, 6 20 minutes naps spread throughtout the day will keep you fullly energized (although this has not been fully tested for long term effects).

If you take a nap halfway through the day, you'll be able to stay up a couple hours later without losing sleep.

[Tony]

That seems kind of excessive. Even in my philosophy course that was essentially a reading course and everybody complained about the length and the difficulty of texts... was not anywhere near this level.

Now, to technicalities: you'd have to figure out where your bottleneck is. It could be in eye-movement (there are techniques to scan text faster), reading of actual words, or content comprehension.

The first is the easiest to deal with. Tim Ferriss has been known for all kinds of body/life-style hacks, and naturally he has some science to share about increasing your raw reading speed. http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/07/30/speed-reading-and-accelerated-learning/

Something to keep in mind though is that if you are reading technical texts that require time to understand the material (as oppose to reading fiction for personal enjoyment), then reading faster will not help you with retention and comprehension.

[mirhagk]

An important thing that will help you both increase speed and retain the knowledge is to be well rested. Seriously, it will increase your speed like mad.

Also I learnt something interesting a while ago, apparently our short term memory can only remember 6 things for 1 mintue.

[deathbow2134]

I've found that very briefly skimming over the section you have to read before you actually read it allows you to read it faster and understand it better. I'm an IB student so I do a lot of reading, but not that much.

[ultimatebuster]

What kind of textbooks are we talking about? Some stuff can be found online, and a CTRL+F command is much shorter than finding something in pages and pages of material.

[mirhagk]

Btw I followed this article and it worked really well. I nearly doubled my reading speed, and even if that is only temporary and I only increased it by 10% that's still awesome.