Reading With the Right Brain: Read Faster by Reading Ideas Instead of Just Words (2 page)

Then I discovered that if I
visualized
what I was reading, I would automatically think in larger concepts. By concentrating on visual images, I was encouraging my brain to think of the larger ideas. Even if I couldn’t always think of an actual image, the attempt to visualize was still focusing my attention on mental concepts rather than words.

As I thought about this visualizing technique, I realized I’d seen something like this before.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
by Betty Edwards is a very effective book for learning to draw. The book was first published in 1979, when the science of lateral brain function was new. The book explained how, contrary to how the left brain merely described things, the right brain thought in pictures; and by suppressing the descriptions on the left side, you could use the special right brain talent to actually draw what you saw instead of what you thought you saw.

This seemed similar to what I was doing when visualizing the thought-units. I was using my visual right hemisphere to imagine the real concepts of what I was reading.

We don’t need to explore any of this science in detail, but only need to understand that each side of the brain works in a very different way. For those with a computer background, basically the left brain works as a serial processor, and the right brain works as a parallel processor. This means the left brain handles information one step at a time, while the right brain looks at whole patterns of information simultaneously.

The result is that the two sides have different personalities and see the world in very different ways. But it’s the partnership of this odd couple that lets us make careful analyses as well as leaps of intuition.

Recognizing this, it became apparent where my difficulty in reading had occurred. I was concentrating heavily on the left-brain function of decoding words, and was leaving the real comprehension of ideas pretty much to chance. But this was all I was ever taught in school. Word-recognition is where most reading instruction ends.

Most of the more advanced reading improvement courses also only concentrate on the left brain function of recognizing words, but then just having you try to recognize them faster.

Tapping the right brain was the answer, and understanding how to do this could be a big help. Even though the ReadSpeeder course was very effective and well-received, I saw there was still a need for a clearer explanation of how and why this worked, and how to best apply this method. Collecting, clarifying, and organizing these ideas is what led to this book.

This approach to improving reading skills is different from previous approaches because it doesn’t suggest pushing your speed and waiting for your comprehension to catch up. Instead, it teaches you how to strengthen your comprehension and then let your reading speed increase on its own. This is not a subtle difference. To read faster you must forget about how
fast
you are reading and put all your attention on
what
you are reading.

But first I want to tell you a joke.

Initial Speed Test

On the following page, there is a quick test to determine your current reading speed. This short test will only take about a minute to read.

The test is in the form of a joke. A joke is used to guarantee comprehension, because who likes to read a joke without getting it? This means you won’t need to take a “comprehension” test because, as with any joke, you’ll know if you “get it” or not.

For this test, read
exactly
the way you would
normally
read. Don’t worry about getting a low score, and don’t try to read faster than your normal speed. This will be your “before” picture.

Use a stopwatch (there are several free ones available on the internet) or use a clock and subtract your starting time from your ending time to find how long it takes you to read the test. You can download a form for recording your initial speed and your later exercise results at
www.readspeeder.com/reading-speeds.html
.

After starting your stopwatch or making a note of your start time, immediately begin reading the text on the next page. When you have finished reading, make a note of your reading time and calculate your words per minute.

When you’re ready, start the clock, turn to the next page, and begin. Remember, read at your normal speed.

A wife was preparing a breakfast of fried eggs for her husband when he suddenly burst into the kitchen.

“Careful!” he said. “Careful! Put in some more butter! Oh, my gosh! You’re cooking too many at once!

“Too many! Turn them! Turn them now! Now! We need more butter! Oh, my gosh! They’re going to stick!

“Slow things down a bit! Careful! Careful! I said be careful! You never listen to me when you’re cooking! Never!

“Right, turn them! Hurry up! Turn them now! Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? Don’t forget to salt them. You know you always forget to salt them. Use the salt. USE THE SALT! USE THE SALT! USE THE SALT!”

The wife stared at him in disbelief. “What the heck is wrong with you? Do you think I don’t know how to fry a couple of eggs?

The husband replied calmly, “I just wanted to show you what it feels like when I’m driving.”

Stop Your Timer Now

Note the length of time in seconds

(e.g. 1 minute 15 seconds = 75 seconds).

Next, calculate your reading speed in words per minute (WPM) by dividing the number of words (which is 152) by the seconds you took to read, and then multiplying by sixty.

WPM Formula:

words / seconds x 60 = WPM

For example, if the reading time was seventy-five seconds, your calculation would be:

152 words / 75 seconds x 60 = 122 WPM

When you have completed your calculation, record your speed for later reference.

Note that although there were 161
actual
words, we will use the common standard length of 5.5 characters per word—that’s 4.5 average characters per word plus one space between each word. This will give more consistent results regardless of changing word lengths among exercises.

What Your Speed Means

Based on studies of average adult readers, here are some basic speed categories:

• 1 out of 2 adults can read 200 WPM (“slow” readers)
  
• 1 out of 10 adults can read 300 WPM (“good” readers)
  
• 1 out of 100 adults can read 400 WPM (“fast” readers)
  
• 1 out of 1,000 adults can read 600 WPM (“speed” readers)
  

This should give you a general idea of the distribution of speeds. Notice that only one out of every one hundred adults reads faster than four hundred words per minute. This is interesting because this seems to be a common plateau for many people. It is like some sort of physical speed limit.

Exceeding four hundred words per minute appears to require a fundamental shift in mindset; readers can only pass this speed when they stop thinking of the words.

Actual speed readers (over 600 WPM) are a particularly rarified group. In fact, it makes me wonder where all the graduates of the many speed reading courses are—those courses that claim you can easily learn to read thousands of words per minute—because these people certainly are not showing up in any of the statistics.

But these statistics are not meant to discourage you, only to offer a reality check. Even reading four hundred words per minute is an excellent skill to have and a very achievable one with this method. If a two-hundred-words-per-minute reader could double his or her speed to four hundred words per minute, this would be an excellent result which would definitely be worth their effort.

This does not mean it’s not possible to continue improving to six hundred words per minute and beyond, but you can never know how far any individual can go since reading aptitudes are as unique as basketball or bowling aptitudes. But with proper understanding of the processes and techniques in this book, you will be on the path to reaching your maximum potential.

Chapter 1: Getting Started

Thank you for purchasing this book and for your
time
. Time has become a rare commodity, and I truly appreciate you giving me the opportunity to share an idea that has changed my life. It has been an adventure to write this book and to develop the supporting concepts and theories. I am honored to be allowed to share this with you.

Background

The theory of reading conceptually came to me after years of personal frustration. I am sixty-three years old and had been frustrated with my reading since about the age of ten. By the time I was forty-nine, I was convinced my slow reading was incurable. The idea I had in the summer of 2000, in retrospect, now seems blindingly obvious: READING IS COMPREHENSION.

This idea is more powerful than it might sound. It is this discovery that allowed me to increase my reading speed from 150 words per minute, to a very enjoyable 450-500 words per minute.

The idea stemmed from the realization that comprehension wasn’t just a
part
of reading; on the contrary, reading was nothing
but
comprehension. Seeing text and recognizing words, was only the
delivery
process—but it wasn’t
reading
. The words delivered raw data to my brain, but this data wasn’t actually
read
until I
understood
it.

All those speed reading books, programs, and courses that I’d tried in the past only focused on eye movement and word recognition—that is, learning to
see
words faster. But seeing is not reading.

Many courses even suggested I could completely
ignore
comprehension and somehow good comprehension would come to me AFTER I became a fast reader. But this is never what happened. The faster I pushed my reading, the faster the information seemed to leak out of my brain.

So, why were they telling me that faster reading would result in faster comprehension? It appears that this hypothesis was based on nothing more than the observation that fast readers had good comprehension.

But why assume that fast reading
leads
to good comprehension? Doesn’t it make more sense the other way around
―
that better comprehension leads to faster reading?

After all, what
is
reading? Is it only recognizing and pronouncing words? Obviously not, because there are plenty of words I can recognize and pronounce but still have no idea what they mean.

For example, I can “read” this medical text: “
Aspergillus was detected histopathologically in the visceral pleural cavity
.”
But when I say I can read this, I mean I can
say
the words. My mouth and eyes might read this text, but, since I am not a doctor, all my mind processes is "
blah blah blah
."

Real reading is something that occurs AFTER you recognize the words. It’s what happens when you realize what the writer is
saying
, or more exactly what the author was
thinking
when he or she wrote the words. You haven’t read
anything
until you’ve
comprehended
it.

OK, as interesting as all this might be (to me anyway), here’s the good part. The exercises in this book are pretty easy to do. Just practice with the specially formatted texts and you will begin reading whole phrases at a time, and go from hearing words to
seeing
ideas
.

Why Read Faster?

If you tell someone you are learning to read faster, you will usually hear,
“Why would you want to read faster? How could you enjoy a book if you read it fast? To enjoy your reading, don’t you need to read slow enough to listen to the sound of the words, the cadence and rhythm of the language? Wouldn’t reading fast destroy the beauty of the story?”

But think about this. How do you know what speed is best? Unless you’re reading aloud, how do you know what the “correct” speed is? Some people read faster and some people read slower. Is
yours,
or
theirs
, the “right” speed?

There is no clock in your mind. Reading speed is very flexible and relative to your thinking speed. If you can comprehend faster, you will be thinking faster, but what you read will always seem to be taking place at “normal” speed in your mind.

But while you may think you are slowly savoring a book, you actually may be missing much of the big picture by reading too slowly to tie the story points together. By the time you get to the middle of the chapter or book, much of the detail and nuance of the beginning may have faded.

The truth is, there is no right speed. If you know how to read faster, you can read faster or slower if you wish. If you have the right tools, you are free to choose the one you prefer for each situation.

Why This Method?

I realize the field of reading improvement has more than its share of carnival sideshows and tacky self-help books—many of them loaded with hype, hucksterism, pop psychology, and pseudoscientific clichés. Plus, most of these books and courses are simply copies of one another. I’m sure you’ve already noticed this, and I realize any self-appointed guru is likely going to set off your BS detector. So allow me to share some of the comments that were emailed or left on my website about this method:

• "I have used several speed reading programs, but they were missing what this teaches. This is so terrific. Thanks so much."
  
• "I found your course excellent and more than helpful in improving my reading speed and comprehension."
  
• “… a most enjoyable course that has invigorated my love for reading and learning."
  
• "I was not even an average reader. But now with practice, I’m an average reader working towards being an excellent reader. Thank you."
  
• "Your course is perfect, really! This method makes it more pleasurable to read! Thank you so much!"
  
• "Thanks so much for creating this wonderful tool. I struggle with dyslexia and have become increasingly frustrated with my slow reading speed. I just found your tool today, and I’ve already raised my reading speed significantly :) Thanks again for creating this wonderful program."
  
• "This is really great for kids to use to increase their reading fluency. It teaches them to read in meaning units or phrases read. It is transferring to their other reading."
  
• “I am seventy-five and only with your course am I able to read in groups of words."
  
• "Great, amazing new tool. Thank you for inventing this. I absolutely love this."
  
• "I use it to help me get through my school work faster and to also read the classics. Thank you!"
  
• "I have been through countless speed reading books, programs, etc. This is by far the best program I have found. Thank you."
  
• "Hello. Thank you so much for this amazing program. I have noticed a great difference in my ability to concentrate, read, and comprehend. Again, thank you so much."
  
• "I really appreciate you making this tool available for all us. I have already doubled my reading speed. Thank you very much."