Learn simple, practical skills for greater reading proficiency. Discover how to process information better, increase your focus and enhance concentration to recall more for maximising your reading time at work and home. [TAGS: Training,Vocation,Personal Skills]
Speed Reading
Course Description
Wish you could read faster and remember more?
This course is designed to help you do exactly that.
Most people read at around 200 words per minute, but research shows comprehension actually improves at higher speeds – between 300 and 600 words per minute – because your brain stays more focused.
In this practical and engaging course, you'll learn techniques to increase your reading speed while also boosting understanding, memory, and enjoyment.
Whether you're reading for work, study, or pleasure, this course will help you take control of the page.
Through a mix of lecture, demonstration, light-hearted discussion, and hands-on exercises, you'll explore how reading habits are formed, how to overcome common blocks like subvocalisation and regression, and how to actively read with purpose.
You’ll practise time-saving strategies like previewing, skimming, and scanning, and learn memory techniques that help you retain and recall information more effectively.
It’s not just about going faster, it’s about reading smarter.
Course Structure
The course begins by examining how most people learn to read and the habits, both helpful and unhelpful, that result.
You'll learn what efficient readers do differently and practise techniques to improve reading speed and comprehension.
Each session includes exercises to demonstrate and measure progress.
You’ll explore strategies for different types of material, including academic texts, reports, and casual reading, while learning how to preview, scan, and manage your time.
Memory and note-taking methods will also be covered to help you retain and apply what you’ve read.
Course Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Recognise inefficient reading habits and replace them with faster, more effective techniques
- Understand the relationship between reading speed, concentration, and comprehension
- Increase their reading speed through practice and proven strategies
- Reduce subvocalisation (reading aloud in your head) and regression (re-reading unnecessarily)
- Apply techniques such as previewing, skimming, and scanning to different types of reading material
- Use active reading strategies to plan, interpret, and judge texts more effectively
- Retain and recall information using memory techniques
- Take useful notes and organise key ideas for later use
- Approach reading tasks with greater confidence and efficiency
- Enjoy reading more by engaging with material in a focused, purposeful way
Your Tutor is Elizabeth Speed
Elizabeth Speed has been teaching at WEA since 1995
With a background in education, Elizabeth has taught students and adults in public and private schools and organisations in South Australia and Canada.
Elizabeth currently works as a brain coach with individuals of all ages creating a new paradigm for their thinking, learning and remembering because we all have more brain potential than we realise. The key is learning skills to harness your brain potential and understanding how to apply those skills for innovative thinking, smarter learning and a better memory.
Elizabeth has a Diploma of Teaching, a Bachelor of Education, and has completed Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) training.
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