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Preview the material. Scan for the most important words. Read the first and last sentence of every paragraph. Skip over the parts you already know. Retain the most important information.
One of the most efficient ways of improving your reading speed is to preview the material before you read it. This can help you to get a sense of what the text is about and allow you decide if it's even worth reading in full.  To preview the material, try reading the entire first paragraph, the first sentence of each successive paragraph and the entire last paragraph. In between these items, look at headings, bullet points and highlighted words. This won't give you all the details, but it will help you to identify the most important parts to go back to and what you can simply skim over. This is a good technique for long, unfamiliar or difficult texts which you are trying to get an initial grasp of. Another technique is to simply scan the material and pick out any key words. By using this method, you can develop a basic understanding of the material without wasting time on the nitty gritty. For example, in the sentence "the fearsome lion stealthily hunted its unsuspecting prey -- the antelope," it is not necessary to read every single word in order to grasp its meaning. By skimming the text for key words you can come up with the phrase "lion - hunted - antelope", which communicates essentially the same meaning. following this step allows you to halve the time it takes to read a text without sacrificing too much meaning. This technique is best used for simple, short texts, such as magazine and newspaper articles. If you're reading an article, book or paper for the sole purpose of gleaning new information, then a handy technique is just to read the first and last sentence of each paragraph, especially when it's reiterating something you already know.  A lot of non-fiction work can be very repetitive and contain long-winded explanations of a simple concept. If you already have a grasp of the concept, then there's no need to go through the entire paragraph line by line. This also goes for newspaper and magazine articles -- if you only want a basic overview of the contents, it's amazing how much information you can glean simply by reading the first and last sentence of each paragraph. If you're trying to improve your reading speed, you should get used to the idea of skipping over information you already know or understand, as reading these sections will provide you with little additional value.  You can decide which sections are worth reading by skimming the text for key words or reading the first sentence of each paragraph. This will give you a pretty good idea of what the text contains and allow you to decide whether its worth the time investment. This also goes for things that you're not interested in. If you're reading something like a memoir or historical account, it's fine to skip over the parts you're not interested in reading about. This may go against your nature as a reader, but it will save you time while also helping you to maintain interest in what you're ready. Related to this, you should not feel bad about abandoning a book that you're not enjoying or learning anything from. Many books are poorly written or don't do a good job of explaining advanced concepts. Try to read about 10% of every book you pick up and if you find it's not working for you put it down and move on to a different book. This will save you time and be more beneficial in the long run. One of the major issues people have when they begin to read faster is that they have difficulty absorbing and retaining the information they come across. While the major solution to this problem is to become a more active and engaged reader, there are several more specific techniques you can try.   Link concepts in the book to things you already know. Linking complex ideas to a personal experience, memory or emotion will help you to access the information more easily. As a simple example, linking the French word heureux (which means happy) to a pleasant memory where you experienced feelings of happiness might help you to remember the word more easily.  Highlight important information and write summaries. Use a highlighter while you're reading (or just dog-ear entire pages) to highlight important concepts or ideas. Then once you've finished the book, go back to these highlighted sections and use them to make a 200-300 word summary of the book. Doing this will provide you with a database of references that your can use in the future, which also helping you to commit the ideas to memory.