Preview any book or set of facts that you want to memorize. This is especially true when reading books. You don't need to read each book from cover to cover the first time you attempt to read it. Instead, pick up the book, thumb through it looking for key words and ideas and, if possible, jot down just a few notes to keep the information fresh in your mind. This is also true when studying lecture notes or any other material you may want to learn for an exam. After you preview, walk away from the book or material for at least 30 minutes to allow the information to incubate in your mind before returning to read it.
Find a quiet and restful place to read. Make sure that you can go without interruption for at least 20-30 minutes. You should sit with your feet flat on the floor and the book or notes at a 45-degree angle to your line of sight if possible. You can accomplish this by placing a book underneath and angling it toward your body.
Guide your eyes straight down the page when you read. Do this for every page of text, taking no more than five or six seconds to reach the bottom of the page. Go all the way to the end of the book in about 20-30 minutes time. If you are reading a few pages of notes, the same rules still apply. Do not worry about full comprehension at this point. If the amount of material takes longer than 30 minutes to cover, you can break it up into two or more sessions. Once you have read all of the material once in this manner, take a 10 to 15-minute break.
Learn to read multiple lines of text at the same time. This can be accomplished with a little practice. Howard Stephen Berg, creator of the Mega Speed Reading system, claims that the mind has the ability to understand text when read forward and backward while the eyes follow a guide (finger or pencil) quickly across the page. Other advocates believe in a "whole mind" approach that allows the mind to see entire pages or blocks of text at one time and then recall them later. Try a few of these systems to see if one works for you.
Review what you have read immediately after reading it. Take a few minutes and jot down everything you can remember once you have finished speed reading material. This process of recalling information you may have read but not necessarily "said" while reading helps to stir up information your mind may have recorded but that you do not necessarily remember reading. Writing this material down makes it easier to quiet the mind once again and retain the material once you have read through it.
Create "hooks" or "pegs" for important items to remember. If you have a list or set of items to remember, the best way to do this quickly is create a series of associations or hooks which you "hang" your memories on. This involves associating the item you need to learn with something very familiar to you.
For instance, you may wish to create a list of ten items or rooms in your house and associate ten items you need to memorize with each of these rooms. Visualize those items in the rooms of your house and create an action sequence in your mind regarding those items. Be very creative and use actions that are very dramatic if possible. The more memorable the association, the better you will remember the item on the "hook" in your list. The mind tends to remember things in pictures and the more dramatic the picture, the more vivid the memory.