There’s quite a demand for software that teach speed reading these days, as more and more people find their working environment growing increasingly more competitive. Of course one could always sign up for one of the local speed reading courses – they’re all over the place these days. But it’s far more convenient to be able to practice at home. The problem with practice at home is that one doesn’t have the luxury of an instructor, and this can mean that one makes very little progress. But no longer, because with modern speed reading software, technology can allow you to master speed reading right at your computer at home, with sophisticated software that can help you progress better and faster than any instructor could.

So how do you choose the best speed reading software? There are a few things that one should take into consideration when you go about this…

The most important point is what sort of teaching system the software uses. Don’t be taken in by all the hype, but rather download all the trial versions of different speed reading softwares and try them out for yourself. Make your own decision, don’t rely on the opinions of others. As for the teaching system used, when you try out a software, make sure that their method of teaching has some basis in common sense. It MUST include words, because otherwise an exercise becomes more or less irrelevant. If you really want to be careful, time yourself reading some text for a minute, check what your number of words read per minute is (your speed), then try out a software and run the self-test again and see if there’s any improvement.

The second important point is to choose a software with enough potential for advancement. There are a lot of softwares out there that will allow you to progress for a month or so – but after that, what do you do? Remember that if you don’t practice your speed reading occasionally, you’ll grow out of touch with it, and your speed of reading will slowly fall, if not exactly to what it was before you began training, then at least to a much lower level than you achieved while training. So choose a software that will allow for continued growth.

See if professional language experts and educators approve of the software. If they do, there’s a good chance that it is really good, and based upon tried and tested principles of speed reading. If you’d like a recommendation, I think that 7 Speed Reading is a very good and rather optimally designed software. Not only is it created around established and tested norms of speed reading, but it is so well designed that it is sure to help you, no matter what your aptitude for speed reading might be. It also has excellent video training included with the deal, so there’s very little that can go wrong with your speed reading training when you buy this software.

To sum up, there are a lot of speed training softwares out there, and each makes it’s own claims. Go with the recommendations of established educators, try out the trial versions of the softwares for yourself, and go with whatever works best for you.