Improve your Reading Speed by Training Eye Fixation Stops
These days a lot of people practice speed reading in order to gain a competitive edge in the market. Although there are a number of ways in which you can enhance your reading speed, eye fixation is an important concept to look at.
Eye fixation is one of the foremost components of effective reading. In simple terms, eye fixation refers to the point where your eyes take a rest during the reading process. People who tend to make less eye fixations during reading usually have a higher reading speed as compared to people who make frequent eye fixations.
This is because they can read and absorb more words with every fixation. Moreover, the number of words that you can read with a single eye fixation has a direct link with your vision span and vocabulary.
Vision Span And Its Link With Eye Fixations
Vision span is the extent to which the human eye has adequate vision to read text. As I have mentioned before, vision span and eye fixation are directly linked to each other. A person who has a broad vision span will be able to read faster as he/she will be capable to process more words in an eye fixation.
On the other hand, vision span is also a major component of fast reading. If you want to read faster than normal people then you should develop a wider vision span. Although there are numerous ways in which you can enhance your vision span, the easiest way is by reading in chunks. You can also learn that using reading improvement software.
While reading you should make sure that you don’t read the text word by word rather try to read the whole text in chunks. By doing so you will start to develop familiarity with words and your eye span will expand.
Vocabulary
Your vocabulary has a direct impact on your reading speed. Moreover, eye fixation and vocabulary are also associated with each other. Readers who have a vast vocabulary usually develop a faster reading speed as they are able to absorb more words in an eye fixation.
On the contrary, readers who have a limited vocabulary will not be at ease while reading words that are new to them. As a result of this they will spend more time in understanding those words and hence make more eye fixations. Hence, it is extremely important to improve your vocabulary. The following tips are a brief excerpt of how to expand it.
Keep a dictionary – dictionaries are very helpful when it comes to expanding vocabulary. If possible keep a small pocket dictionary with you all the time and look up for new words that you might hear anywhere. By doing so, you will retain the word in your memory for a longer period of time.
Word of the day calendar – it might sound funny to most of you but these calendars work brilliantly. The calendar will add a new word in your vocabulary daily and it will be easier for you to retain it also. Just imagine, you will learn 30 new words in a month and by the end of 1 year your vocabulary will expand by 365 words.
Play games – you can expand your vocabulary by playing games such as scrabble and word jumble.
Consider software – There are many tools available online to really boost your pool of words. In any langauge! This is a review of the best vocabulary software. You may also want to try Memrise for language skills.
Topic Familiarity And Its Link With Eye Fixations
Your familiarity with a certain topic will also have an impact on your reading speed. If the text that you are reading is regarding a topic of your interest then you will be able to read much faster than normal. Moreover, you will be able to absorb more words in an eye fixation.
On the other hand, recent studies have also revealed that people who have a high IQ and general knowledge usually read faster than people who have a poor IQ. The bottom line is that your reading speed will be determined by your vocabulary, vision span and knowledge.