Read Learn to Read With Great Speed! Online
Authors: Michal Stawicki
Tags: #Education & Teaching, #Studying & Workbooks, #Study Guides, #Self-Help, #Time Management, #90 Minutes (44-64 Pages), #Business & Money, #Business Life
Learn to Read With Great Speed! (2 page)
Unfortunately, the vast amount of knowledge we have gathered as humans seems to guarantee that we have at least two opinions about every single thing. Just look at the various diets and fitness strategies: eat that - no, eat this; eat in the morning - no, eat in the afternoon; eat fruits on an empty stomach - no, use them as snacks; run or walk steadily for half an hour every day - no, use five minute HIIT training every second day. It seems we can't agree on anything. It's the same with speed reading.
One study shows that sub-vocalization is an unavoidable part of reading process and doesn't affect reading speed; another shows that it's necessary to reduce it to the point of elimination to improve reading speed. One shows that listening to music while reading can improve your speed; another that it slows you down.
Frankly, I don't care what the latest research "proved" this time. I'm a practitioner. So, I'm teaching what worked in my case and in the case of other people with whom I have contact. I have no interest in the opinions of eggheads as long as they are contradictory to each other, and especially when they are contradictory with my experiences.
Thus, I do not quote authorities and research studies in this book. I just show you what my beliefs are, what techniques I use ... and what results I get.
Ok, so now let's go for the reasons of less than optimal reading speed.
Sub-vocalization, or silent speech, is defined as the internal speech made when reading a word, thus allowing the reader to imagine the sound of the word as it is read. This is a natural process when reading - but
only
because we all were taught to read by vocalization first.
Sub-vocalization is popularly associated with moving one's lips; the actual term refers primarily to the movement of muscles associated with speaking, not the literal moving of lips. Most sub-vocalization is done just inside our heads and is undetectable even by the person doing the sub-vocalizing.
The definition of sub-vocalization that I found states also that it "helps to reduce cognitive load, and it helps the mind to access meanings to enable it to comprehend and remember what is read." And I say, "That's B.S."
I achieved the biggest improvement in reading speed by applying the sub-vocalization reducing exercises. We don't read through our ears; we read through our eyes. "Translating" letters and words to sounds slows us down. When we do that, the talking speed reduces our reading speed. Speed reading is about getting information straight from the sheet of paper (or a screen) through our eyes to our brain. Sense of hearing as a go-between is redundant.
Reading is not a process of recognizing a text word by word; it's recognizing the meaning of the words in context.
Most of us don't realize that the eye sees the picture
only
when it is motionless. While reading, if the eye "jumps" from one part of text to another, it's called an eye fixation. The more fixations you do, the slower you read. There are a few elements which determine your number of fixations.
Your eye's efficiency is very important in the reading process. If your vision span is wider, you can read more words per fixation. That means fewer fixations per text line and higher speed of reading. And opposite dependency is also true - since each fixation equals less words read, then the more fixations per line equals slower reading progress. Vision span is a physical attribute, and it can be trained.
To see how vocabulary determines eye fixations, try to read the verses below carefully, to get their meaning:
Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
These lines come from "The Cantebury Tales", written in Middle English in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer.
You had problems with comprehending this text because some of the words are not in your vocabulary. When you are not familiar with a text, you read and you don't know the words used, your eyes stop frequently to recognize the unfamiliar meaning and the number of fixations increases.
When you don't need to dwell on specific words, you read more words in one fixation, which allows you to read faster.
Compare your speed of understanding Middle English verses with the speed of reading below:
Filled with moral virtue was his speech,
And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.
It was much easier and faster this time, wasn't it?
Your background, your education, your interests, your general knowledge - all these factors influence your reading speed, because they determine your vocabulary and your reading confidence. When the topic is familiar to you, is in your area of expertise or field of interest, you are at home with the author's terminology. The overall meaning is obvious to you, so again, you don't dwell on individual words, and you need fewer fixations to read a single line. Thus, you read faster.
It explains the paradox of correlation between reading speed and comprehension. The lesser understanding of text leads to the slower reading. On the other hand, the faster you read, the more you can read and you can get familiar with more subjects.
It simply means back-tracking, re-reading text that you’ve already read. It's like taking two steps forward and one step back with your eyes. The reasons for regression can differ from one case to another: lack of concentration, really difficult text to comprehend, an excessive sub-vocalization – which disrupts the process of reading – or just bad reading habits.
Different "schools" of speed reading numerate many different additional reasons: lack of concentration, lighting, lack of selection and anticipation skills, and lack of reading tactics. All of these are obvious generalizations or some extensions of sub-vocalization, fixation or regression.
For example, a lack of concentration. Well, it's normal that you get worse results if you are not concentrating, no matter if you read or make burgers at McDonald's. Lighting is important – you cannot read in the dark, can you? Selection and anticipation skills are related to topic familiarity and vocabulary. You cannot select main points from a text when you don't know what it is talking about; you cannot anticipate the meaning of words when your vocabulary is poor. Undeveloped selection and anticipation skills also drive you into regression – if you don't fully comprehend what you read, you try to get the meaning by re-reading a fragment of the text.
The way we learn to read is the cause of every problem we have with speed reading. It is like our training had been aborted in the middle. We all learn at school to read by going through various stages: first recognizing the letters, then joining them into groups and spelling them out, then reading out loud to get a smoothness in reading skill, and finally, we learn to read internally, using our mind's voice. And our teachers are perfectly comfortable with that: "Can Johnny read? Yes, great! Next one!" And we are left at this socially acceptable level of reading skill.
I say, if some simple techniques were to be introduced into primary school's syllabus, all children would have improved reading speed.
I will numerate a few techniques to fight off every speed reading obstacle and explain which I've chosen them for my practice and why.
To reduce sub-vocalization, you need to stop using your sense of hearing to read. All of the exercises below help you to replace the old, slow "see–say–hear–think" way of reading with the faster "see–think" habit of
thinking word meanings
.
Bite your tongue
It is a first, basic technique. It is possible to apply only if you read really slowly, and you are able to observe that you are trying to articulate words while reading - you murmur or move your tongue, consciously or subconsciously.
My son, who used to read very slowly, used this technique successfully.
Occupy your internal voice with another task
- count aloud as you read "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6" and so on
-hum
-sing something simple like "la-la-la-la"
-recite simple and very deeply memorized text
And my favorite:
beat a rhythm as you read
.
I have no intention of acting like a blusterous lunatic while reading. I read mostly at work or in a public transport. There are people around me most of the time. But beating a rhythm is a whole different story. It is unobtrusive, so I read and pat my thigh rhythmically.
What is more, the workbook's author claims this method is the most difficult and most effective for reducing sub-vocalization. Nothing but advantages - so I adopted it.
I just recall some melody and use its rhythm. I found also that actually hearing a rhythm is not necessary. I travel in noisy trains and buses a lot. Sometimes, so noisy that I can't hear my own patting. But the act of patting makes me concentrate on a rhythm and hear the "sound" of the rhythm in my head.
It's important to use your whole forearm, not just a wrist. Beating transfers a part of your attention from the hearing sense to your body motion.
Don't get frustrated if the art of reading and occupying your internal voice simultaneously eludes you. It's normal. You will lose a rhythm focusing too much on comprehending a text. You will beat a rhythm perfectly, but you will lose an ability to focus on reading. You will have no idea what you have just read after the exercise. The same is true with other tactics - recitation, singing, humming, and counting aloud.
Using one of the above techniques is obligatory if you want to improve your reading speed. Sub-vocalization is the number one enemy of speed reading. "See–say–hear–think" is a detour we have been taught as children, and it will not serve you right in adulthood. Breaking this habitual detour is a pesky experience, but the results are well worth it.
There are lots of causes of a greater number of fixations, so there is no single simple remedy to fix it. Whatever the people behind the speed reading industry – the people who are selling the books, programs, and courses say – nobody can substitute for you. You are the one who needs to work on your vocabulary or topic familiarity. Techniques can help you only in the "technical" aspect. You can expand your vision span with exercises, but it won't do you much good, if you don't understand every third word in some professional periodical.
Eye span pyramid
There are different kinds of pyramids - with single words, sentences, and numbers. You are supposed to read them from the apex to the bottom, keeping your view in the middle of the pyramid. The vertical moves of eyeballs are not allowed.
When the text is too wide for you to read it with one fixation, then stop, close your eyes for a few seconds, open them again focusing your view in the middle of the pyramid, and try to see as many words as possible on the both sides of the line.
Shultz tables
This is a tool to train your vision span. A table consists of 25 fields filled with symbols. They are usually numbers, but they also can be letters or any kind of symbols that can be arranged in a specific order. Doing exercises with Shultz tables develops your three-dimensional, multi-channeled attention. The symbols in the table will subconsciously be perceived as one picture.
Your purpose is to concentrate your view on the center field, whilst being able to see the central number and all the numbers in the corners of a table. Then, you find the numbers in ascending or descending order as fast as you can, keeping your view focused on the central square of the table.
At the beginning, you can start with smaller tables - 3x3 or 4x4 fields. You should be able to point out all numbers in less than one minute. Try to find the numbers faster with each successive exercise.
I like Shultz tables the most of all the exercises expanding the field of vision. They are relatively easy to create, and numbers in each of them are arranged in a random manner. It is not so easy to randomly create pyramids or columns of words or numbers. I found some PDF documents, printed them and used them for the practice sessions. After several iterations, I had all the text and numbers memorized and couldn't use them effectively.
Fixation training
The next stage of expanding your vision span is to create a fixation habit. To have a wide vision span is fine and good, but we were taught to read a text word by word, so we need to develop new reading habits - to jump just a few times over a text line with our eyesight. I've just started this kind of training - this is as far as my personal program has gotten so far.
You should develop the habit of moving your eyesight just a couple times per line. I used pre-prepared texts and, more or less, I memorized them. To work on a new text with every practice session, you need a template with dots marking the stopping points for your eye. It's a little fuss to copy a new text to a template file and print it every time, but it's much better than working on a text you've already read several times.
This kind of reading also helps tremendously with fighting off a regression. You consciously force yourself to read chunks of text jumping from one to another, and there is no going back in this method. You train this way of reading as long as it's necessary to develop a new subconscious habit.
No "technical" exercises will help you to enrich your vocabulary or general knowledge. You must work on them on your own. If you worked on some text previously a couple of times, the training of your eyes transforms into the training of your memory. You need a source of fresh reading materials for your practice sessions.
Regression can slow you down significantly. If you read very fast, but you need to go back and re-read the text you've just gone through, then in consequence, you read at a mediocre pace.
The picture below illustrates how your eyes are working when a regression takes place:
What you need instead, is steady movement in one direction. Always forward.
Selection
Conscious control over your attention is an important part of speed reading. Selection, paying your attention to a specific purpose, is a skill that can help you to decide if scanned text is useful for you and worth reading or not. It is especially important in the Internet era.
Selection exercises are really simple, and I love them because you can work on any text. Well, almost any – the text you practice on must be new to you.
Exercises
:
- within five seconds, find a repeated word in a text. Read the text to the end, counting the occurrences of this word
- find all the articles in a text
- find all the numbers in a text
-find all the connectives in a text
- find all the verbs in a text
And you can establish your own criteria of selection. The only limit is your creativity. It all comes down to finding something in a text. You can also add a time factor to the exercises; for example, you have only 20 seconds to find all the articles on a page.
Pointer
I left the best for last. Using a pointer to read has a multitude of advantages. It helps to eliminate regression, reduce sub-vocalization, and to master your eye fixation. It is THE technique of speed reading.
Using a pointer is the most powerful and easiest way to eliminate a regression. Use the tip of your finger or a pen. Point it below the line of text and move it as you read in a sweeping motion, just like kids who learn to read. Oh, a little faster than them. You don't have to point the whole length of a line, your peripheral vision will take care of the beginnings and ends of the lines.
Reading above the speed of your usual comprehension rate with a pointer reduces sub-vocalization. Your internal voice just cannot cope with your pointer.
Pursuing the pointer with your eyesight, especially faster than you are used to reading, trains your eyes to catch chunks of sentences, not individual words.
This one simple tool may have an enormous influence on your reading skill progress.
If you read mostly on a computer screen - like me - don't worry. Use the pointer for your practice sessions and whenever you lay hands on a paper copy. The progress might not be as rapid as you wish, but there will be some progress, nonetheless. Your exercises with physical books will improve your screen reading, too.
You can also use a pointer to read from eReader devices, unless they have touch panels. But there is a work-around for such devices, too – just hover the pointer a quarter of an inch over the device. By the way, that's the way I prefer to use a pointer. I find the swish of the finger on a paper sheet a bit distracting.
My workbook encouraged me to start by sweeping the pointer every second line, and try to read two lines at a time, then to read three, four, and more, and then go to even more advanced techniques.
