Use only your eyes and brain. People talk to themselves when reading in two ways, either vocalizing--moving the lips, or sub-vocalizing--talking in your head. This will slow you down as you will only be able to read as fast as you speak. Dennis Doyle of the Glendale Community College, recommends thinking of reading as looking at a landscape, there is no need to use speech.
Preview a passage before reading through it as a whole, as this can improve your understanding of the text. Note the title of the document or chapter and study any sub-headings, italic or bold print, pictures or graphs. "Skim" the text by reading the first and last paragraph and the first sentence of each paragraph in between. You should now see the main idea of the text, the purpose of the text and the style of writing.
Do not re-read the same line of text over and over. This is a habit of poor readers who do not fully comprehend the meaning of the text and it really interrupts the reading process. While a single, careful reading may not result in full comprehension, it is more effective than constant regressions. Previewing the text first as explained in step two, should help you to gain a good overall understanding without the need to re-read.
Practice speed reading. According to Read Fast Now.com, speed reading is becoming increasingly popular, especially among business people. Speed reading is the art of previewing and skimming over text, in the same way as the previewing method. However, when speed reading you should not spend time reading the passage thoroughly afterward. Look for pertinent information, skim the first and last sentence of every paragraph and disregard anything you already know. According to Self Growth.com, using this method you can get 80 percent of the information you need in 20 percent of the time.
Practice with a newspaper. When reading, our eyes make stops along the line. Poor readers make many more of these fixations, resulting in slower reading and lack of comprehension. Newspaper columns often only have four or five words per line, so skim down the column trying to take in all the words as a whole, rather than looking at each word individually.