Recently I have been spending a lot of time developing my reading skills. For most of my life I have avoided "unnecessary" reading such as fiction. About a month ago, my reading speed was roughly 350 words per minute (the average reader reads at 200 WPM). Although above average, 350 WPM is no longer acceptable to me.

These days I read a lot about business and the financial markets. It takes me a few hours to get through my daily routine of The Economist, The Financial Times, Businessweek, and a host of blogs. However, my main motivation for improving reading speed is to cover more material, not shorten my reading time.

About a month ago I ordered the books "Triple Your Reading Speed" by Cutler and "Breakthrough Rapid Reading" by Kump. Kump is more helpful since he has a set of drills for each chapter. There are a lot of books and programs out there that promise outrageous results, however Kump really emphasizes the amount of practice that is necessary to obtain significant improvements in speed and comprehension. The free book at http://www.semanticrestructuring.com/lookma/ is also pretty useful.

I am now up to about 500 WPM. I estimate that two more months of solid practice will help me reach the 1000 WPM barrier. Beyond that, I suspect the law of diminishing returns will set in. In any case, doubling reading volume or halving reading time is definitely +EV for the long term.