7 Best Tips for Reading Efficiency

Whether you're a student, business professional, lawyer, doctor, or lifelong learner, reading is everywhere and developing the skill is essential. Today, with all the information overload, the need to hone the skill of learning productivity has never been more important. This can be challenging because texts can often be time consuming, confusing, and tiring. If you are looking to overcome these obstacles, check out these 7 tips for how to become a better and more efficient reader.

Skimming/Scanning

Just like watching a trailer for a new movie lets you know what to expect, skimming the text you're about to read does the same thing. This phenomenon is called Priming. Scanning the text before you start reading allows you to attain the main ideas before diving into the smaller details of the text.  

Use Upword's **AI Notes** and **Uplight** features to help identify main ideas and important information within seconds!

Ask Questions

While skimming through the text, write down questions for yourself to answer as you re-read thoroughly to help you focus and enhance your reading. Create questions to help guide you through your reading and be sure that you are getting all of the information you need.

Capture key ideas

Taking notes while going through the text is a good way to easily create a summary to look back on. By writing down the main ideas, it creates a clear skeleton of the text, making it easier to follow along and comprehend.

Use Upword's note taking features to capture & personalize your summary.

Chunking

Do not read every word! Focus on blocks of words (between 3-5) and allow your eyes to scan through them. With practice, you will stop reading each word separately and be able to identify chunks in text and increase reading speed.

Use Upword's AI-powered Uplight feature for auto highlighting and easier scanning.

Vocabulary

If there is a word you don't know and you cannot understand it from context, look it up! This way, next time you see this word, you won't have to put in more time into understanding this word, saving yourself a lot of time.

There is a convenient translation feature you can access while reading your text on Upword.

Pace Yourself

There is no need to try to read the text as fast as possible. This will result in poor understanding and retention of the information. Rather, take your time and make sure you are going slow enough to be able to fully take in all of the relevant information in the text.

Be mindful

When you sit down to read your text, make sure that you have created a space conducive to progress, focus, and reading.  Eliminated distractions such as: phones, social media, friends, and even just noise. These distractions will reduce your ability to focus, read the text, and understand the text.

To do this, it often helps to have a robust platform that allows you to do everything in one place. Upword has what every reader needs to get through the text efficiently and effectively.

At Upword, we make it a priority to increase productivity and efficiency for the reader. Although reading can often be overwhelming and tiresome, we are confident that with these tips and a bit of our AI help, you will be able to overcome any text.