How do I stop rereading lines and read faster?
To read faster, slide your finger under each line a little faster than feels comfortable and let your eyes follow it down. This steadies your gaze and stops you drifting back to reread lines. In one test the same article took one minute forty unpaced and fifty seconds finger-paced, twice as fast.
How to do it
- Put your finger under the line you are readingRest your fingertip beneath the first line of text. It becomes the pacer your eyes will track down the page.
- Slide it a little faster than feels comfortableMove your finger under each line at a pace slightly quicker than your natural reading speed. The mild push is what drives the gain.
- Let your eyes follow the finger downKeep your gaze locked on the moving finger instead of the words alone. This steadies your eyes and stops them sliding back up to reread.
- Time yourself to check the differenceRead the next thing you pick up while finger-pacing and time it. In one test the same article dropped from one minute forty to fifty seconds, a clean two times faster.
Questions that come up
Do I have to physically touch the page, or does a cursor work too?
The script only describes using your finger as the pacer, so that is what is tested here. The mechanism is having a moving guide your eyes follow, which keeps your gaze steady and stops backtracking. A pen tip or on-screen cursor gives the same kind of guide, though results with those are not measured in the tip.
Won't reading faster hurt how much I actually understand?
The tip does not claim anything about comprehension; its measured result is speed, dropping the same article from one minute forty to fifty seconds. Pacing mainly removes the wasted time spent drifting back to reread lines, so on straightforward text you keep the meaning. On dense material, slow down where you need to.
How fast is 'a little faster than feels comfortable'?
Just past your natural pace, enough that it takes slight effort but you still follow the words. The point is the small push, not racing. If you lose the thread of what you are reading, ease the finger back until you are comfortable, then nudge the speed up again.
Full transcript
You crawl down the page, then slide back up to reread the same line you just finished. Here's the fix: pace your eyes with your finger. Slide it under each line, a little faster than feels comfortable. Let your eyes follow it down. It steadies your gaze and stops you drifting back — that's what speeds you up. Same reader, same article: unpaced, one minute forty. Finger-paced, fifty seconds. A clean two times. Try it on the next thing you read, and time yourself.