Speed Reading App: Eyercize

I recently came across an excellent speed reading app. This app allows you to read a text using a highlighted guide to focus the attention of your eyes (meta guiding). You can select the speed of the guide, the number of words grouped by the guide (chunking), and the number of fixation points (the number of pauses your eye makes along a line of text). I've managed to bring my reading speed up to about 1000 words per minute.

One caveat about speed reading is that it does not deliver very good comprehension. Despite this, speed reading is still an excellent way to power through papers, even scientific articles (and the sports section...). The key, I've found, is to speed read the entire article once or twice to get a gist of what the authors are saying. After that, a more detailed readover will give better comprehension once your brain has been primed by the first iteration. It depends on how familiar you are with the subject (domain knowledge).

Links:
http://www.eyercize.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading