Reading With the Right Brain: Read Faster by Reading Ideas Instead of Just Words (34 page)

As shown here, there isn’t really a rigid fixation on each phrase, but a general focus on larger portions of the sentence. You will be aware of the surrounding text but the units of meaning will stand out as imaginable ideas when you are looking for ideas to visualize.

The generic images above are only samples of what you might imagine; any attention paid to imagining the meaning will work, though. And remember again, not every idea has an easy to imagine picture; paying attention to just the conceptual ideas will also work.

The word-groups chosen in this example are also subjective. There is no perfect grouping, although this particular grouping may possibly be close to what many people would come up with, depending on the number of words at a time they are comfortable with. But which words you group and which images or ideas you imagine are much less important than the effort to
see
the groups of words as ideas. Just scan the text and look for ideas.

If you concentrate on seeing ideas, the words will clump together in the only way they make sense. It’s a little bit like looking for all the blue sky pieces when you are making a jigsaw puzzle; you are more likely to see something if it’s in the forefront of your mind and you are looking for it.

Just look for each meaningful chunk of information and you will feel your right-brain say, “Aha,” as it recognizes the meaning of the phrase.

Cautions

One thing you must look out for while reading normal text is excessive speeding. Reading without the assistance of highlighted phrases is going to be slower as you obviously have more to do now. But at the same time, there will probably be an overwhelming urge to push your speed as fast as you can go. Instead, slow down and pay attention to each phrase. You must make comprehension your main, no, your
only
pursuit. Chasing after speed is chasing your shadow. Slow down if necessary, because if you aren’t comprehending, you aren’t reading! Make sure you are looking at the ideas and concentrating on their images and meaning; this is when the speed will come.

Another temptation
—
probably made even stronger when reading regular text
—
is to take in too many words at once. It will seem to be an easy way to read faster, by simply reading larger phrases, but you need to let the visualizing right brain decide where the ideas are, even if you end up only picking one or two words at times. Yes, I said even one word, because the goal is to visualize ideas as you read, and multi-word phrases are used only because they are easier to visualize. But sometimes even a single word can represent a separate distinct thought. Just be flexible and patient and look for the conceptual ideas while you read.

Lastly, you may find it difficult to enforce phrase-reading, and instead may try to
flow
through the text in a steady stream of individual words. It’s true that the more you concentrate on ideas of whole word-groups, the more you will get into the “zone”—where the
ideas
will become a smooth flow—but in order to do that, you must be looking at the text in distinct phrases. Be sure to focus your attention on those meaningful phrases that you can imagine as visual, conceptual ideas. Even if this is strangely difficult to adhere to, you must correct yourself if you notice that you are running individual words together in a steady string. Isolating the distinct phrases is just as important to comprehension speed as is having spaces between words. Don’t ignore the phrases—they are like the cogs in the comprehension gears.

Types of Reading

So what kinds of reading can you apply this to? Well, it’s probably not for reading small items like street signs or product ingredients. But the more continuous the flow of ideas, the more reading for ideas will help you see the bigger picture. And although this can be used for many types of reading, each type may still require a somewhat different approach.

Educational

Reading educational material requires a higher degree of flexibility than most reading. The very nature of educational reading is meant to be one of discovery. All of this type of reading must be new to you in order for it to even be educational.

Any type of non-fiction reading is going to include frequent stops to ponder what you have read. This stop-and-go reading is naturally going to increase the time it takes to finish such a book, but you are doing more than just reading; you are also stopping to consider what you have read. Regardless of the overall speed, reading in thought-units can make any complicated material easier to understand by breaking it up into meaningful, bite-size pieces of information.

Just remember to stop when necessary to carefully consider something you have learned. Also, make sure to start off slowly when you begin again, ensuring you are paying attention to the new material rather than the old.

Current Events

Keeping up with the news can involve a lot more skimming than reading. There is so much news available that you have to be very selective. Glance at headlines and skim articles that look interesting, reading only the few that merit deeper understanding. Even then, you should always be ready to drop it and move on.

Personal Interest

Personal interest reading could include most pastime reading, such as hobbies, sports, or entertainment. Even more than with current events, this type of reading needs a ruthless filtering because much of it you will already know—or at least suspect. This type of reading is more like a treasure hunt. Skim until you find the nuggets of novelty, and don’t hesitate to put the material down if you decide it is not offering you anything new or helpful.

Stories

This is where you can lose yourself in your reading. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, reading a story is like watching a movie. This is where it’s easiest to get into the zone, a mental place where the rest of the world simply falls away. You can tune out everything and enter this new world. Here is where reading with your right brain will turn
listening
to a story into
living
it.

Your imagination and visualized ideas will make you a part of the story, and your faster reading will make the story move along more fluidly. You won’t be pushing your speed; your speed will increase as you are being pulled through the story.

Comics

How could you speed read a comic book, and why would you? It’s a funny thing about reading in phrases, but it becomes a habit. And when faced with a small balloon of text, it is often natural to see it as a whole idea and read it all at once. I was surprised when I first noticed this, but I suppose the word bubbles in comics are already more like thought-units than long dissertations. And then, if you’re not in a rush, you could use the extra time to enjoy the pictures.

Last Words

And finally, a few last words to keep in mind. Realize that reading for ideas won’t always work perfectly. It is not magic. It is a tool to help you focus and concentrate on ideas rather than words. As such, it will be a much more effective way of reading than concentrating on the words and the sounds they make. Look for the ideas and they will appear; realize that a lot depends on the type of text, the type of writer, and even (maybe especially) your own frame of mind. Reading for ideas is the path to better and faster comprehension, and the more you take this path, the smoother it will become.

Two other things that can be helpful while you practice are to set small reading goals and take regular breaks. Pick up a book and decide how many pages you are going to read. Put a bookmark at that ending page and then stop when you get there—but not
until
you get there. Don’t stop and don’t let any other thoughts interfere with your reading until you reach that bookmark. Train yourself during these short sprints to only think of what you are reading. Do as many sprints as you want in one sitting, but allow yourself a breather between each. Make it a habit to only
read
while you read. Make the action of picking up a book an automatic switch that toggles your mind into its reader mode.

And again, remember also to be patient with yourself. It is self-defeating to criticize your performance because you are only reinforcing those negative ideas. Being impatient also increases the urge to push your speed beyond of your comprehension.

It is good to critique yourself, if that means to honestly appraise your strengths and weaknesses, but if you find yourself being overly self-critical, then stop reading and do something else until you can approach your reading practice with a more productive attitude.

Also, realize that you are not responsible for all your reading success. It is a tango between you and the author. It is an unfortunate truth, but many authors do not write as fluently as we might like. As Nathaniel Hawthorne put it, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” No matter how hard you try, some text is just slower to understand and read. And today, with so much writing and so many writers, thanks to the internet and self-publishing, I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are surprising amounts of poor spelling, poor grammar, and even typing errors.

But that’s the way it is. Do the best with what you have. Some of these texts, littered with grammatical land mines, may still contain enough amazing gems of information to make the effort worthwhile. Just be patient and flexible.

You will succeed because success is simply being on the right path. If you know what you need to do, then you only have to do it. What you need to do is read text as ideas by visualizing whole units of meaning. That’s it. The rest is practice.

I hope this book has given you some new tools as well as a new perspective on reading. All reading takes place in our brains, not our eyes. Our eyes are only tools for delivering the text to our brains, the same way our hands are tools for holding the book. Real reading only takes place when information is integrated into our existing knowledge base. This internal process of information assimilation is where all real reading improvement has to take place, not in any external changes like the speed at which we move our eyes or the width of our “eye span.”

Reading IS comprehension. That means comprehension is not just a part of reading, it is all that reading is. If we read text with fifty percent comprehension, then we are only reading fifty percent of the text. The rest of the text is only looked at—and maybe sounded out—but not “read.”

Once that text enters the brain, it’s not inside some mysterious black box where we have no control of how it is processed. Much of what goes on in our brains may be outside our conscious view; what goes on may be mysterious, but it’s
not
out of our control. We might not be able to control exactly how our brains process text, but we can steer them in more productive directions, the same way a rider directs a horse. The rider doesn’t have to know what the horse is thinking, but by understanding the horse’s capabilities and by using proper techniques, he can cause the horse to do his bidding. By understanding reading and understanding your brain, you can read for ideas by reading with the right brain.

Practice Exercise #20

We now arrive at our last practice exercise, but remember, there is still a lot of skill to gain by going back over the exercises and reapplying your improved reading habits.

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

Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina

Happy families
are all alike;
every unhappy family
is unhappy
in its own way.

Everything
was in confusion
in the Oblonskys’ house.
The wife had discovered
that the husband
was carrying on
an intrigue
with a French girl,
who had been a governess
in their family,
and she had announced
to her husband
that she could not
go on living
in the same house
with him.
This position of affairs
had now lasted
three days,
and not only
the husband and wife
themselves,
but all the members
of their family
and household,
were painfully
conscious of it.
Every person
in the house felt that
there was no sense
in their living together,
and that the stray people
brought together
by chance in any inn
had more in common
with one another
than they,
the members of the family
and household
of the Oblonskys.
The wife did not leave
her own room,
the husband
had not been at home
for three days.
The children ran wild
all over the house;
the English governess
quarreled
with the housekeeper,
and wrote to a friend
asking her
to look out
for a new
situation for her;
the man-cook
had walked off
the day before
just at dinner time;
the kitchen-maid,
and the coachman
had given warning.

Three days
after the quarrel,
Prince Stepan
Arkadyevitch Oblonsky—
Stiva,
as he was called
in the fashionable world—
woke up
at his usual hour,
that is,
at eight o’clock
in the morning,
not in his
wife’s bedroom,
but on
the leather-covered sofa
in his study.
He turned over his stout,
well-cared-for person
on the springy sofa,
as though he would sink
into a long sleep again;
he vigorously embraced
the pillow
on the other side
and buried
his face in it;
but all at once
he jumped up,
sat up on the sofa,
and opened his eyes.