Reading With the Right Brain: Read Faster by Reading Ideas Instead of Just Words (33 page)

Besides all that logic stuff, it just so happens that vocalizing
helps
comprehension—plain and simple. You do it every time you try to decipher anything complicated. It’s natural to vocalize to make things easier to understand.

Although subvocalizing does supply a comprehension benefit, it is still a very strong habit. However, it’s definitely easier to replace this habit than suppress it, and you replace it by applying your visual and imagining skills. Subvocalizing is a crutch, and you will stop using it when it is no longer needed.

Reading vs. Skimming and Scanning

If you want to learn how to
read
faster, you won’t do it by practicing the piano or learning to dance. Skimming and scanning are excellent and very helpful skills to have, but they are
not
reading.

Too many “speed reading” courses intentionally confuse these skills with reading. When you push your speed and ignore your comprehension, you are skimming—not reading. When you search the text for a pertinent piece of information, you are scanning—not reading.

Yes, learn to do these things, but don’t walk away thinking you were speed reading.

Practice Exercise #19

Continue to practice real speed reading through
speed comprehension
. Forget all the speed reading fables, and create your own true reading success story by involving and strengthening that powerful and often ignored silent partner on your right side.

When you’re ready, begin reading the first thousand words of

Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott

Little Women

“Christmas
won’t be Christmas
without any presents,”
grumbled Jo,
lying on the rug.

“It’s so dreadful
to be poor!”
sighed Meg,
looking down
at her old dress.

“I don’t think it’s fair
for some girls
to have plenty
of pretty things,
and other girls
nothing at all,”
added little Amy,
with an injured sniff.

“We’ve got
Father and Mother,
and each other,”
said Beth contentedly
from her corner.

The four young faces
on which
the firelight shone
brightened at the cheerful words,
but darkened again
as Jo said sadly,
“We haven’t got Father,
and shall not have him
for a long time.”
She didn’t say
“perhaps never,”
but each silently
added it,
thinking of Father
far away,
where the fighting was.

Nobody spoke
for a minute;
then Meg said
in an altered tone,
“You know the reason
Mother proposed
not having any presents
this Christmas
was because
it is going to be
a hard winter
for everyone;
and she thinks
we ought not
to spend money
for pleasure,
when our men
are suffering so
in the army.
We can’t do much,
but we can make
our little sacrifices,
and ought to
do it gladly.
But I am afraid
I don’t,”
and Meg shook her head,
as she thought
regretfully
of all the pretty things
she wanted.

“But I don’t think
the little
we should spend
would do any good.
We’ve each got a dollar,
and the army wouldn’t be
much helped
by our giving that.
I agree
not to expect anything
from Mother or you,
but I do want
to buy Undine and Sintran
for myself.
I’ve wanted it so long,”
said Jo,
who was a bookworm.

“I planned to spend mine
in new music,”
said Beth,
with a little sigh,
which no one heard
but the hearth brush
and kettle-holder.

“I shall get
a nice box
of Faber’s
drawing pencils;
I really need them,”
said Amy decidedly.

“Mother didn’t say
anything about our money,
and she won’t wish us
to give up everything.
Let’s each buy
what we want,
and have a little fun;
I’m sure
we work hard enough
to earn it,”
cried Jo,
examining the heels
of her shoes
in a gentlemanly manner.

“I know I do—
teaching those
tiresome children
nearly all day,
when I’m longing
to enjoy myself
at home,”
began Meg,
in the complaining tone
again.

“You don’t have
half such a hard time
as I do,”
said Jo.
“How would you like
to be shut up for hours
with a nervous,
fussy old lady,
who keeps you trotting,
is never satisfied,
and worries you
till you’re ready
to fly out the window
or cry?”

“It’s naughty to fret,
but I do think
washing dishes
and keeping things tidy
is the worst work
in the world.
It makes me cross,
and my hands get
so stiff,
I can’t practice
well at all.”
And Beth looked
at her rough hands
with a sigh
that anyone could hear
that time.

“I don’t believe
any of you suffer
as I do,”
cried Amy,
“for you don’t have to
go to school
with impertinent girls,
who plague you
if you don’t know
your lessons,
and laugh at
your dresses,
and label your father
if he isn’t rich,
and insult you
when your nose
isn’t nice.”

“If you mean libel,
I’d say so,
and not talk
about labels,
as if Papa
was a pickle bottle,”
advised Jo,
laughing.

“I know what I mean,
and you needn’t be
statirical about it.
It’s proper
to use good words,
and improve
your vocabilary,”
returned Amy,
with dignity.

"Don’t peck
at one another,
children.
Don’t you wish
we had the money
Papa lost
when we were little, Jo?
Dear me!
How happy
and good we’d be,
if we had no worries!”
said Meg,
who could remember
better times.

“You said
the other day
you thought
we were a deal happier
than the King children,
for they were fighting
and fretting
all the time,
in spite of their money.”

“So I did, Beth.
Well,
I think we are.
For though
we do have to work,
we make fun of ourselves,
and are
a pretty jolly set,
as Jo would say."

“Jo does use
such slang words!”
observed Amy,
with a reproving look
at the long figure
stretched on the rug.

Jo immediately sat up,
put her hands
in her pockets,
and began to whistle.

“Don’t, Jo.
It’s so boyish!”

“That’s why I do it."

“I detest rude,
unladylike girls!”

“I hate affected,
niminy-piminy chits!”

“Birds
in their little nests
agree,”
sang Beth,
the peacemaker,
with such a funny face
that both sharp voices
softened to a laugh,
and the "pecking” ended
for that time.

"Really,
girls,
you are both
to be blamed,”
said Meg,
beginning to lecture
in her
elder-sisterly fashion.
“You are old enough
to leave off boyish tricks,
and to behave better,
Josephine.
It didn’t
matter so much
when you were
a little girl,
but now
you are so tall,
and turn up your hair,
you should remember that you are a young lady.”

“I’m not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I’ll wear it in two tails till I’m twenty,” cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut mane. “I hate to think I’ve got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! It’s bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy’s games and work and manners! I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!”

And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets, and her ball bounded across the room.

“Poor Jo! It’s too bad, but it can’t be helped. So you must try to be contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls,” said Beth, stroking the rough head with a hand that all the dish washing and dusting in the world could not make ungentle in its touch.

“As for you, Amy,” continued Meg, “you are altogether too particular and prim. Your airs are funny now, but you’ll grow…

Chapter 20: Reading on Your Own

The phrase-highlighted practice text in this book gives you an excellent opportunity to experience reading whole phrases and to practice visualizing and conceptualizing the ideas while you read. The final goal, however, is to be able to use this skill to read regular text, without assistance. So, what happens when you remove the training wheels and read on your own?

Practice with Normal Text

Practice reading with normal text whenever you can. This will help you transfer the skill to your regular reading. Scanning normal text for phrases will help you learn what works best for you.

Plus, you want to discover what special challenges are faced when you are in charge of both steps; not only conceptualizing whole word-groups at a glance, but simultaneously picking out those word-groups on your own.

The most common question about picking out word-groups is, “How do you know which words to put together?” And the second most popular question is, “How can you select the word-groups fast enough while also concentrating on your reading?” The answer to both is the same, and is similar to the answer on how to stop subvocalization and regression: by visualizing!

Remember that you can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and while you’re reading, that one thing should only be: comprehending the text. Just as you use visualizing for replacing, rather than suppressing, bad habits, you can use visualizing for
finding
the phrases.

It may seem impossible at first, but when you look for meaningful ideas that you can visualize, your mind will automatically zoom in on the phrases for you.

Here’s an example. As you read the following sentence, don’t worry about your speed, but concentrate on looking for images and ideas.

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.

Read it over if you need to in order to come up with something to imagine for each separately meaningful piece of the sentence. You’re just looking at the sentence and thinking, “What could I imagine here?”

Different readers may group the words together differently, but here is one way the sentence could be read. Each line represents the words your eyes might see at a glance, but the dark text represents the part which your mind might pick out as a separate visual idea. This is an idea you could instantly imagine and conceptualize. Read each dark phrase and look at the suggested image.