Your eyes do not glide across a line of text. They jump. Each jump, called a saccade, lands on a word for about a quarter of a second, and in that pause the brain does its work. Most of the time you spend reading is spent moving, not seeing.

A speed reader removes the moving. It holds each word at the same spot on the screen and lets the words come to you, one after another, so the only thing left to do is understand.

Riffle marks one letter in every word, slightly left of center. That letter is where the eye recognizes a word fastest. Keep your gaze on it and the rest of the word fills in on its own.

Start slow. Four hundred words a minute feels fast for a day and ordinary for a week.