One of the things that can also greatly help is to group words together. This is not difficult to do; it just takes some practice. Try this: I think you'll already "feel" the difference in reading these sentences.
Quote:
A. If... you... now... read... like... this...., you.... will.... be... very.... slow.
B. You can... double your.... speed by.... reading two... words at... a time.
C. Later on you... can even read.... three or more.... words at once.
D. At some point...., you will group words together logically...., which increaes your speed.... even more. You will even.... start to recognize patterns...., that occur over and over... gaining additional speed.... because you don't read.... the entire pattern.... anymore.
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(edit: the MindTools link mentions this grouping also.)
This is an example with regard to a pattern. In the Baldur's Gate II role-playing game, and in some Forgotten Realms novels, there is a dragon called
Nizidramanii'yt. The pronounciation is "NIZI-Drama-NI-Hi-Yet". Do you think I actually *READ* that word (name) each time I see it?
Same with a city, from the same setting: Suldanesselar. ("Sul-Da-NESSE-Lar".) Reading such words by recognition instead of reading them out loud gains a lot of speed at some point. In the beginning, your reading will be slower when you start a new book, as you need to remember all the strange names and places (especially if you read fantasy/science-fiction), but at some point, you just "see" the names and read right over them.
As you have already determined yourself, the greatest barrier in doing this is needing to actually "say" the words in your mind while reading. Then you will read word for word, which will be really slow, especially if the words are very long or unfamiliar.