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Speed Reading

Key benifits of joining speed reading course:

  1. Double your reading speed
  2. Improve comprehension
  3. Beautiful and easy to use
  4. Step-by-step training
  5. Guaranteed results

Psychologists and educational specialists working on visual acuity used a tachistoscope to conclude that, with training, an average person could identify minute images flashed on the screen for only one five-hundredth of a second (2 ms) ie.speed reading. Though the images used were of airplanes, the results had implications for reading. Our left brain reads words but right brain takes data as image to learn something.

It was not until the late 1950s that a portable, reliable and convenient device would be developed as a tool for increasing reading speed. Evelyn Wood, a researcher and schoolteacher, was committed to understanding why some people were naturally faster at reading and tried to force herself to read very quickly. In 1958, while brushing off the pages of a book she had thrown down in despair, she discovered that the sweeping motion of her hand across the page caught the attention of her eyes, and helped them move more smoothly across the page. She then used the hand as a pacer.

META GUIDING:

Meta guiding is the visual guiding of the eye using a finger or pointer, such as a pen, in order for the eye to move faster along the length of a passage of text. It involves drawing invisible shapes on a page of text in order to broaden the visual span for speed reading. It has also been claimed to reduce subvocalization (saying words in your head rather than grasping the idea), thereby speeding up reading. For example, an audience of customers at a speed reading seminar will be instructed to use a finger or pen to make these shapes on a page and told that this will speed up their visual cortex, increase their visual span to take in the whole line, and even imprint the information into their subconscious for later retrieval. An emphasis on viewing each word, albeit briefly, is required for this method to be effective. E.g. S movement and Z movement. Because this encourages the eye to skim over the text, it can reduce comprehension and memory, and lead to missing important details of the text.

Types of reading:

Types of reading greatly affect the speed reading. Each of us is wired differently from environmental influences. Many have learned to read word by word from grade school, and have never been taught or informed the need to improve upon that method. When reading word by word, our eyes often skip back to a previous word or line; we might also fixate on a single word even after it has been read. These mechanical issues slow us down while reading and comprehending.

There are 3 types of reading

  1. Mental reading (Subvocalization): sounding out each word internally, as reading to yourself. This is the slowest form of reading.
  2. Auditory reading: hearing out the read words. This is a faster process.
  3. Visual reading: understanding the meaning of the word, rather than sounding or hearing. This is the fastest process.

Mental readers generally read at approximately 250 words per minute. Auditory readers read at approximately 450 words per minute. Visual readers read at approximately 700 words per minute. Visual reading is a skill that can be developed through continuous training and practice.

Irrespective of the type being applied, scientific studies have demonstrated that reading—defined here as capturing and decoding all the words on every page—faster than 900 wpm is not possible. This speed limit was derived from the following measurements: The shortest recorded fixation period (approximately a sixth of a second). The shortest recorded period between fixations (approximately one-thirtieth of a second). The maximum recorded number of words that the eye can see in a single fixation (approximately three words ). Utilizing the above three measurements together, it was established that a ten-word line of four inches could be processed, as defined above, at a rate of at most 900 wpm. Reading at speeds higher than 900 wpm is therefore considered as skimming.