I don't know if this is very relevant, but I'll post it anyways.
Here's one way that might help you read and comprehend a block of words faster. In nearly all writings, they have a title for each chapter. Each chapter is divided into small sections, with a title that goes with those sections.
The PR course has instructed that we preview these chapter title, section titles, and even go as far as reading the first and last sentence of each paragraph.
I would do the above and go one step further. After having read those titles of chapters, titles of each sections on the chapter as well as a couple of randomly selected sentences from each paragraph, I would try to guess and hypothesize what specifically this piece of writing is about.
If I am reading an article about the disappearing chemical industry in the U.S, I would preview, and then take an educated guess based on what I have preview regarding the main idea of the entire article. For example, I might guess that the article is saying that U.S chemical industry is shrinking because the market opportunities in this country for chem industry is disppearing.
Then you read each paragraph in block and keep in mind the hypothesis you have made. You'll be essentailly looking for a yes or no answer (yes that my hypothesis is correct, or no my hypothsis is wrong).
And you do that with dip reading like Alex had recommended.
I tried that and the most interesting effect had happened to me. As I dip read, it seems like each block of words I was reading became more "shiny". Its as if there are light bulb behind those word blocks that I was reading.
Upon realizing that this effect was happening, I imagined those block of words being downloaded into my brain like a computer being downloaded with a new program.
Try that. I think you'll find reading block of words suddenly more easy to understand.
