How to Effectively Train Each Day for Improved Reading and Retention

One of the most common questions we receive from our students is: “How much should I train each day, and what exercises should I focus on?” It’s a valid concern, as the path to mastering skills like speed reading, memory retention, and information processing can sometimes feel overwhelming. The good news is that you don’t need to spend hours every day practicing. The key lies in focusing on a few essential exercises that target different aspects of your cognitive abilities. With consistent, focused practice, you’ll be able to see real progress over time.

While some students prefer to play games and complete exercises from the course materials (many of which are available in this blog’s resources), it’s important to recognize that the amount of time spent on these activities doesn’t have a significant direct correlation with success. Rather than getting lost in the quantity of time spent, it’s more about the quality and consistency of your practice. Below, we’ll discuss how you can effectively train each day to improve your visualization, reading speed, and information handling, leading to faster learning and long-term retention.

If you’re looking for a more structured approach to superlearning and speed reading, check out Speed Reading: New Areas of Knowledge, which outlines powerful techniques for boosting your reading skills and knowledge retention.

Visualization, Markers, and Linking: The Foundation of Retention

One of the most important skills you can develop is the ability to visualize information. Visualization is more than just creating mental images; it’s about actively engaging with the material to enhance your understanding and retention. This can be practiced as standalone exercises or in conjunction with speed reading materials.

How to Practice Visualization

• Visualize Photos and Art Pieces: Start by looking at a photo or artwork, then close your eyes and try to recall the details of the image. The more vividly you can recreate the scene in your mind, the better. 
• Remember Long Lists: Try to memorize long lists of items, such as grocery lists or scientific terms. Break the list into categories or create associations between items to make them easier to remember.
• Linking Information: When trying to memorize facts, use linking techniques to connect new information with something you already know. This process helps to create a mental web of connections that makes recall easier.
• Practice with Real-Life Examples: Visualize the phone numbers of friends, or imagine the car ahead of you in traffic. These exercises can be surprisingly effective for improving memory.

In the early stages, you should dedicate about 4 hours per week to these exercises for real progress. Over time, once your skills have been honed, you can reduce this to about 2 hours per month to maintain your abilities and prevent skill degradation. For more advanced techniques on visualization, be sure to explore this article, which covers the transition from vocalization to sub-visualization—a crucial step in speeding up your reading without sacrificing comprehension.

Speed Reading: The Core Skill for Fast Learning

Once you’ve practiced visualization and linking, it’s time to focus on speed reading. Speed reading is not just about reading faster; it’s about reading more efficiently and retaining key information. To truly excel in speed reading, you need to develop a strategy that incorporates both speed and comprehension.

How to Train Your Speed Reading

1. Start with Retention: In the beginning, focus on retention until you can consistently recall over 90% of the material you read. This is essential for understanding how to retain information effectively.
2. Suppress Subvocalization: Once you’ve achieved good retention, work on suppressing subvocalization (the habit of mentally pronouncing each word as you read). This is a critical step in increasing your reading speed.
3. Widen Your Visual Angle: Start using Shultz tables and saccadic methods to widen your visual angle, enabling you to read more words in a single glance. As you practice, you should be able to reach speeds of around 800 words per minute (wpm) with 80% retention.
4. Vary Your Speed: Once you’ve mastered these techniques, experiment with varying your reading speed based on the content. Some material may require slower reading, while other content can be read faster. As you train, try varying your reading speed between 300 wpm and 3000 wpm. Aim to reach around 1600wpm with 70% retention on average.
5. Consistent Practice: To see significant progress, aim to speed-read for at least 8 hours per week. This regular practice will not only increase your reading speed but also help improve your ability to absorb and retain information. To maintain your progress, aim for at least 6 hours per month.

If you’re interested in enhancing your speed reading skills, check out my Speed Reading Premium Bundle for a comprehensive guide to mastering reading at high speeds.

Information Handling: Superlearning Anything You Desire

Once you feel comfortable with visualization and speed reading, you’re ready to dive into superlearning. This is where things get exciting, as you can now learn and retain a vast array of knowledge in a fraction of the time. Information handling involves not only reading faster but also efficiently processing and organizing new information for long-term retention.

Developing Your Information Handling Skills

• Focus on Themes: Start by developing themes around topics that interest you. By focusing on specific areas of interest, you’ll make it easier to absorb and retain large amounts of information. This also helps you make connections between different pieces of knowledge.
• Read Blogs and Articles: Make a habit of reading blogs, scientific articles, and books. As you progress, you’ll become more adept at processing complex material and remembering key concepts.
• Retention of Conversations and Videos: Try to memorize conversations or videos you’ve watched. This exercise helps you practice retaining auditory information, which is another important skill in superlearning.
• Learning New Skills: Use your enhanced reading and retention abilities to learn new skills, whether it’s coding, languages, or any other area of interest. Superlearning is highly addictive, and once you begin to see results, you’ll naturally want to process more and more information.

It’s recommended to spend at least an hour per day processing information while you’re actively learning. This is the foundation for becoming a true superlearner. As you continue to practice, you’ll find that you can retain and recall vast amounts of information with ease. To dive deeper into these strategies, be sure to check out 10 Speed Reading Tips, which includes effective methods for speeding up your reading and retaining more information.

Anna’s Tricks for Everyday Practice

In addition to the methods mentioned above, Anna has developed her own set of tricks for everyday practice. While I don’t have all her notes yet, I’m working on organizing them into additional posts to share with you soon. These tricks will give you more personalized techniques to implement in your daily training routine.

Conclusion: Consistency is Key to Mastery

To effectively train your reading, retention, and information handling skills, consistency is key. While there are many exercises and techniques available, what matters most is the time and effort you put into practicing each day. By focusing on visualization, speed reading, and information handling, you’ll significantly improve your learning abilities and retain more knowledge than ever before.

For more information and advanced techniques, feel free to connect with me on Facebook to stay updated and continue your learning journey.

Lastly, for additional reading and resources, explore my books on Amazon, which offer even more insights on mastering speed reading and memory techniques.