# 3 Common Speed Reading Mistakes and How to Use the Skill

> Stopping mid-paragraph, getting stuck on a word and giving up early stall most new speed readers. Learn how to fix all three and where speed reading pays off.

Page: https://speedreadingo.fastemy.com/lessons/common-mistakes/ · Updated: 2026-11-02 · By: Abdullah Yılmaz · Speed Readingo

## The short answer

Three common speed reading mistakes are stopping in the middle of a paragraph, getting stuck repeating a word in your head, and giving up during the hard start. Fix them by marking only at paragraph ends, taking a short break when you stall, and practising daily on real texts. Use the skill where the gist is enough.

1. Read to the end of the paragraph before you stop to mark.
2. If you stall on a word, glance back once; if it keeps happening, take a short break and look into the distance.
3. Practise every day on real texts, starting with 10 minutes and building toward half an hour.
4. Use speed for the gist: AI answers, research, scanning. Slow down for details.

## Mistake 1: stopping in the middle of a paragraph

When a sentence grabs you, it is tempting to stop right there and think about it. The course says to wait for the end of the paragraph, which is where marking happens. Stop mid-paragraph a few times and it becomes a habit; soon every paragraph is a string of small stops.

**Fix:** finish the paragraph, then mark. Only split a paragraph in two when it is very long.

## Mistake 2: getting stuck on a word

Sometimes your eyes stall on a word and the inner voice repeats it over and over. The course calls this normal and reads it as a sign that you are tired. Its fix: take a short break and look into the distance, which rests both your eyes and your mind.

**What the research adds:** a single glance back is not a mistake. Skilled readers look back on about 10–15% of their eye movements, mostly to the word just before ([Rayner, 2009](https://doi.org/10.1080/17470210902816461)), and taking away the chance to look back lowers comprehension ([Schotter et al., 2014](https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614531148)). Glance back once if you need to. The mistake is the loop, not the look.

## Mistake 3: giving up at the hard start

The first weeks feel bad. You read faster but understand less, and it is easy to decide the method doesn't work. As the course puts it, without challenges there is no progress. Start with 10 minutes a day on real texts; once you are committed, the course asks for at least half an hour a day.

Research agrees with the patience part: reading practice helps, but slowly, and the reliable way to read faster without losing the meaning is more reading and a bigger vocabulary ([Rayner et al., 2016](https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100615623267)).

## All three steps on a real text

Once the habits settle, the course puts the whole method to work on two kinds of text.

**Term-heavy texts, such as an academic article.** Read only the introduction and the conclusion, start fast, and stop more often to mark. Build marks from the sounds of the terms. In the course's Turkish demo, *corpus callosum*, the bridge between the brain's two halves, becomes a watermelon (*karpuz* in Turkish, close to "corpus") phoning ("call") a sumo wrestler, with the whole scene sitting between the two halves of the brain. *Hippocampus* becomes a hippo on a campus you know, and the final note chains the marks with arrows. Marking takes longer in these texts, but it speeds up with habit.

**Meaning-heavy texts, such as an article on social media habits.** Read the whole section, then mark once. The founder pictures a friend glued to their phone, sets all the findings in a school he knows, and adds parents and teachers giving training as the fix. These texts are easier to mark, and the course finds them more fun.

As the course puts it, from here on your progress depends on lots of practice with real texts.

## Where speed reading pays off

The founder's own uses are a good guide:

- **Long AI answers.** Read a chatbot's long reply quickly to see whether it answered your question, then slow down for the part you will act on.
- **Research.** Being very curious, he uses it most to get the outline of a new topic fast, so the basics fall into place before he goes deeper.
- **Code.** If you are a developer, scan a file quickly to find the part that matters.

Research backs this kind of use when time is short: skimming beats reading only part of a text for the main ideas, though not for details or inferences ([Duggan & Payne, 2009](https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016995)).

And where it doesn't pay off: the course itself warns that details can slip when you read fast, so take care in exams. The same goes for contracts, numbers and instructions.

## Try it

Pick one long text you have to read this week and use all three steps: pre-read it, read it with your eyes, and mark at each paragraph end. Then write the note. Every week or two, check your progress with the [reading speed test](https://speedreadingo.fastemy.com/reading-speed-test/), using the text you didn't read last time.

That completes the course. Go back to any step from [all lessons](https://speedreadingo.fastemy.com/lessons/), or read the guide on [how to read faster without losing the meaning](https://speedreadingo.fastemy.com/guides/how-to-read-faster/).

## FAQ

### What are the most common speed reading mistakes?

Stopping in the middle of a paragraph, getting stuck repeating a word with the inner voice, and giving up while it still feels hard. A fourth sits behind all three: using speed where you need details, such as numbers, contracts or exam questions.

### Is it bad to go back and reread when speed reading?

An occasional glance back is normal: skilled readers look back on about 10 to 15% of their eye movements, mostly to the word just before (Rayner, 2009). Taking that chance away lowers comprehension (Schotter et al., 2014). The mistake is getting stuck in a loop, not looking back.

### How much should I practise speed reading each day?

The course starts with 10 minutes a day on real texts and later asks for at least half an hour once you are committed. Research agrees that reading practice helps, but the gains come slowly (Rayner et al., 2016).

### When should you not speed read?

When details matter: contracts, numbers, instructions and exam questions about what a text does or does not say. Trained speed readers did no better than skimmers on detail questions (reviewed in Rayner et al., 2016).

## Sources

1. Rayner, K. (2009). Eye movements and attention in reading, scene perception, and visual search. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(8), 1457–1506. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470210902816461
2. Schotter, E. R., Tran, R., & Rayner, K. (2014). Don’t believe what you read (only once): Comprehension is supported by regressions during reading. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1218–1226. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614531148
3. Rayner, K., Schotter, E. R., Masson, M. E. J., Potter, M. C., & Treiman, R. (2016). So much to read, so little time: How do we read, and can speed reading help?. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(1), 4–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100615623267
4. Duggan, G. B., & Payne, S. J. (2009). Text skimming: The process and effectiveness of foraging through text under time pressure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 15(3), 228–242. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016995