With the upcoming midterm season, reading and remembering information may have never been easier.

Yesterday, the Penn Memory Team hosted Paul Nowak, who led a webinar teaching basic techniques to boost reading speed, comprehension and online reading abilities.

Nowak is the founder of the Iris Organization, the largest and leading speed reading organization in the United States. Nowak has worked with clients, including Google and Coca-Cola, in 20 different cities.

“Having a stronger memory increases productivity,” Nowak said. He reflected on his own personal experiences in college and how he used to fall behind trying to read hundreds of pages a week. Finding speed reading “was a life changing experience,” he said.

The average person’s reading speed is 150-250 words per minute. This can improve to as high as five times that number. “All it takes is a little bit of practice,” Nowak said.

He stressed getting rid of bad reading habits like reading word by word, rereading material and reading out loud for auditory reassurance.

The biggest tip Nowak had was to always use a pen to guide your eyes while reading — this improves speed and comprehension. When reading on a computer, websites that use RSVP, or Rapid Serial Visual Representation, like accelareader.com are helpful.

Around 60 students packed the room and some even had to sit on the floor.

College and Wharton junior Juan Carlos Melendez-Torres came because he has “to read 900 to 1000 pages a week that I need to get through efficiently and quickly.”

He felt the drills were not the most useful, but he will take advantage of the online application mentioned in the webinar.

Jose Romero, a College sophomore, came because he “was trying to find ways to not fall asleep while reading.” He liked the interactive feel and will “definitely try to incorporate the ideas into my reading materials.”

Felipe Rigaudeau-Lopez, a College sophomore, improved his speed by ninety words per minute and expressed interest in joining the memory team.

The Penn team was started two years ago by College junior Christopher Cruz-Guzman after his experience on a high school memory team.

The team of 13 competes annually at the USA Memory Championship. There are four events: recalling a deck of cards, names and faces, a series of numbers and poetry. The team practices every single day and even uses classes and recalling lectures as practice, said Cruz-Guzman.

“Penn has a lot of information you can learn,” said Cruz-Guzman, who’s also the team president. “The purpose of this is to be able to remember it. The educational system here does not teach us how to do this so we’re teaching the student body how to do it better.”

College junior Caitlin Applebaum, a memory team member, has “been able to accomplish things I never thought possible like memorize the order of a deck of cards.”

Applebaum added, “It also helps me in social situations like to remember the names and faces of people I meet.”

Jason Mow, an Engineer junior, said his GPA has definitely improved since joining the team.

The goal of the team this year is to win the USA Memory Championship in March. They placed second last year.