Developing your reading skills so that you can read faster, and have better understanding, will help you to be a much better student. It will exercise your mind, and your imagination. You can't help but to see images in your head when you are fully engaged in a book.

That's the key.

To be able to make a conscious effort to focus your attention on what you are reading so that you aren't just looking at the words with your eyes, but with your mind as well.

There are three different types of reading. Skimming over the material so that you can find a specific point. Careful reading, where the reader focuses on the main ideas throughout the material. Intensive reading, when the reader's full attention is on the details of every idea that is being presented.

The first step in developing good reading skills, is to train your eyes to look for the key points and ideas. When you look at a page, look for groups of words instead of looking at them one at a time.

Its the same thing that you did when you first started learning to read. In the beginning, you looked at each letter, and sounded it out in order to figure out what the word was.

You don't do that anymore do you?

Your eyes, and mind have gotten to a point where they've been trained to simply look at a word, and in an instant, can recognize the sounds that the letters represent.

Now you must take that process a step further, by learning to see groups of words, so that your mind will automatically know what thoughts or ideas the words represent.

Remember, you're looking for thoughts, and ideas.

In each paragraph, there is a main thought. It is usually in the first sentence. Then, there are a few sentences that are used to explain, in more detail, what the first sentence stated. The final sentence or two will usually sum up the paragraph.

Knowing this, you can look over the paragraphs, and really, just focus on the first, and last sections.

If something in particular seems to require further attention, go back, and read the rest of the paragraph.

Different authors will use different paragraph structure. Look to see if you can familiarize yourself with that structure, and then use your knowledge to get through the material quicker.

When studying a textbook, it is especially helpful to go through the process of first, focusing your mind on the subject at hand. Then, scan over the material, looking for italics, and bold. Then, check at the end of the section to see if the text book offers any review questions, or a summary.

This way, you can read with questions, thoughts, and ideas about the subject, already in your mind. You will be starting out with a point of reference.

Now, having spent a few minutes doing a brief preview, Start reading the material, and train your eyes, and your mind to pick out the important information from the pages.

Just like when you are going to take a trip, you check the starting point and destination, then select the route, and finally travel the route.

Using these methods will help you to greatly increase not only the speed at which you are able to cover different materials, but will also help you to remember more of what you read.