Improving reading speed is a goal of many people, especially those who count on their reading skills as part of their job. In some occupations, reading fast may not be as essential as accuracy, but some speedreading courses promise to deliver both the ability to read faster and remember what is read. In most instances, how well those speedreading courses deliver on the promise is up to the student and effort they put into learning speed reading. Many of the courses teach basically the same premise, but it is how it is presented that makes the difference in reading more quickly.

In many speedreading courses the focus is on looking at text in a way completely different than people were taught as children. When first learning to read, the words are sounded out and repetition is used to make the words recognizable when they are viewed again. With speedreading courses, readers are taught to recognize words based on only a few letters in the word, enabling them to see the entire word based on only those few letters.

They are also taught in speedreading courses that they do not have to say the word out loud or to themselves to understand the word. Reading, to them, becomes more of a reflex action, meaning they understand the word as well as the context in which it is used, without having to hear the word in their head. While the techniques to achieve this may be slightly different, the goal of any speed reading program should be to at least maintain their comprehension level.

Another one of the goals of speedreading courses is to help people comprehend and retain what they have read. Simply going through the motions to increase reading speed will not offer any advantage if they have no idea what the material meant as soon as they finish reading it. Along with reading faster, online speed reading courses also should teach ways to relate to the text so the meaning can be retained.

The average adult that has not taken speedreading courses will read at about two words per second, or about 60 words per minute. The brain works much faster than that, being capable of seeing thousands of words per minute and speedreading courses should help readers read with their brains, without interference from their conscious thoughts. In other words, they should be able to read without having to think about what they are reading and still be able to remember it all.