These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 5: Reading

Fast Reading versus Slow Reading

• Fast reading helps you not only to finish reading the book quickly but also to focus on the sections of the book that you consider important. Feel free to slow your reading a little when you feel the importance of a section or even a paragraph of a book.

• Fast reading is an advantage but not a necessity in itself unless you are sitting for a heavy exam full of long, complex questions and of short duration. Even then, more important than fast reading is concentration and comprehension accuracy.

• If you are a slow reader, rather than waiting so long to reach the end of a book and start a new one, it might be better to read more than one book at the same time. This can help you to avoid getting bored.

• Don’t be alarmed if you are a slow reader as long as you absorb what you’re reading and enjoy it. But it’s OK to try to learn fast reading skills to improve your reading speed and not necessarily to compete for a fast-reading record.

• Don’t hesitate to take advantage of your knack for speed-reading to reread books when you feel you haven’t fully absorbed or enjoyed them from the first reading.

• In reading, the most important thing is accurate and thorough comprehension, not primarily speed. But if you have the gift of fast reading, you generally don’t need to slow down unless you notice that you are speeding at the expense of understanding.

• If you are a slow reader and aspire to improve your reading speed, choose the areas of reading that are closest to your heart as you try speed-reading exercises.

• If you are a slow reader and cannot improve your reading speed, do not be discouraged. You can remedy that by passing through, or even skipping, the parts you feel are less important in a book that you should finish reading quickly.

• If you are an average reader and want to improve your skills, instead of looking for speed-reading exercises, focus on developing your concentration and comprehension skills while reading.