Speed Reading Tips: Supersonic Readers Take the Advice of the Sages – Why Not You?

Remember when you were young and went to your favorite swimming hole and couldn`t wait to dive into the water and your parents, or other adult would tell you to look before you dive in?

Or, have you ever ventured out on a long road trip; did you first look at a map?

Or, do you remember the Aesop Fable of the Fox and the Goat?

Although these examples may seem to differ they all have a powerful meaning to understanding our 4th Key to Supersonic Reading (the ability to read and comprehend at rates above the 600 wpm threshold of linear sub-vocal reading. Key Concept Four is the easiest of the 4 keys to employ, makes the previous 3 keys easier to apply, but is the most forgotten and overlooked concept that leads to problems in comprehension at high rates when not employed.

The Fourth Key Concept of Supersonic Reading is referred to as using the Gestalt.

Gestalt means: An organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.

How this applies to the Dynamic Speed Reading Methodology is that when you have something to read that is more than a paragraph or so, your mind will be better able to respond to the meaning of the text, especially at super fast rates, if you stop to first consider the whole before focusing on the parts. When reading then consider first the organization of the material, before jumping into reading the first words and sentence of the text to be read.

What the three examples listed in the beginning of this post are meant to suggest is that before you read anything that has more than a few paragraphs look before you leap. Know the overall direction and how the various pieces fit into the whole. This requires a little pre-thinking.

And remember, when I mention pre-thinking, we`ll assume that you know that reading comprehension is actually thinking and responding to the meaning of the text.  IT DOESN`T MEAN MERELY MOVING YOUR EYES RAPIDLY!  It`s how fast your mind can respond to the meanings that constitutes reading with comprehension.

Similarly, if you venture on a long road trip, have you looked at the map of the journey first to understand the general direction and the main roads to be taken? If you are approaching a swimming hole do you look first to see if the water is deep enough to dive safely? Remember, the fox humiliated the goat in the Aesop Fable warning him to be sure there is always a way out before venturing into something unknown, to look before he leapt.

When reading applies this centuries old wisdom to your reading and sees how comprehension will become easier for you. I also invite you enroll in The Dynamic Speed Reading Masers Program for a wealth of comprehension strategies and tactics as well as proven developmental exercises to stretch and grow your skills. It will provide you with the keys to reading at the speed of thought.

Is Your Brain Being Re-wired Without Your Approval?

A colleague of mine, Robert Tanner, just published an article that has great relevance for everyone in this Digital Information Age which inevitably creates overload for us.

Go to Conquering the Email Burden 

The Naomi Tran reference is true for highly efficient readers. Unfortunately most people still approach their information without changing the strategy and tactics they learned as grade-schoolers, thus they fall behind!

As Nicholas Carr notes in his latest books and articles, the digital age has caused many to change their behaviors in dealing with information overload. Neuron-scientists are beginning to investigate the emergence of the possibility. But Carr`s writing causes us to take a pause and think about the long term implications.

I think you`re Robert is correct about his conclusion that time is money and then describing the catch-22 that organizations face regarding the re-training of their people. Retraining for mastery of information overload does require hands-on training (or in this case re-training) of the brain. But how do organizations provide for that time away from work?

These challenges go way beyond the email overload. They require us to learn to read, think, and remember in new ways. In order to conquer Information Overload, we need to properly train our brain to meet the challenge.

Speed Reading Tips: Avoid the Trap of Focusing on “Eye-Span”

When learning to speed read, the saying that a little information can be a dangerous thing still applies. Consider the term eye-span. Even though I`ve been teaching people from all walks of life how to speed read for 30 years, I have only recently received many questions about it. For new learners coming into my programs, the question keeps coming up early in training. I don`t even use the term in my training. The new learner has read something about it somewhere. There is too much concern for it though.

Eye-span is referred to the amount of text someone takes in with the eyes for each stopping, or fixation of the eyes. By stating eye-span, someone has already been doing some investigating about speed reading. There is much misinformation about the topic. It is true that part of the goal of speedreading is to allow the eyes to take in more for each stop of the eyes (fixation). A traditional linear reader typically takes in one to three words per fixation. That is inefficient when you consider the total area of clear focus the eyes have at normal reading distance. This normal area of sight measures between one to three inches in diameter. Sight is always dimensional – that means there is both a horizontal and vertical field.

The problem of learning to speed read and eye-span becomes apparent due to marketing and the fact that many programs try to teach you to widen the horizontal span. In fact many programs, especially speed reading software programs, will train your eyes way beyond the natural limitation of the sight experience that is about 3 inches using only the horizontal field. These types of training exercises try to stretch that span to six inches or more telling the learner to go straight down the page with one fixation per line, line by line.

There are 2 problems with this:
1. Natural sight takes in the horizontal field as well as the vertical field. So this is an unnatural muscular change for the eyes, not to mention merely an enlarged linear approach to reading.
2. The new learner`s mind is busy thinking about the mechanics of the eyes, rather than focusing on the meaning of the print.

Remember I pointed out that sight is dimensional? Try this experiment. Take a page of mostly text that the printed area across measures six to eight inches and has big paragraphs. Now, focus your eyes somewhere in the middle of the text. Lock your eyes still. Take a pen or pencil and draw a circle around how much print you can clearly see. Don`t worry about understanding the text, just focus on clarity of the sight experience, or how much you see. Measure the area. It is probably somewhere between one to three inches in diameter. This is your natural cone of sight.

When you speed read, you are trying to move this cone of sight across and down the page. However, you don`t want to be concerned by how many words you are seeing. You want your mind to search out meaning from the text. However, without training the mind to respond and comprehend with these words appearing out of order, it will be quite frustrating because you do not comprehend.

Please know that you can not read if you do not comprehend. Comprehension is the key. Comprehension is getting meaning from the print. Too often I get learners who say they learned to go through material at 1500-2500 words per minute, but they don`t understand. They have gone through the visual training, but not the cognitive training, or comprehension.

With this focus on eye-span the learner gets too concerned over the technical aspects of the eyes, or mechanics, and forgets about the meaning of the text. The mind gets overloaded because there is competition for what the mind is doing. You can`t comprehend if you`re so focused on the technical aspects of what the eyes are doing. So forget about what your eyes are doing. Push for the meaning!

For all our years of teaching speed reading, we teach learners to open that 1-3 inches in diameter in a natural manner and search for idea chunks, or meaningful groups of words. It is not about word groups, word clusters, or the number of words that is important. It is about stopping the eyes on meaning groups. Speed Reading is a process by which the reader is searching for meaning from the print in a more efficient manner. Eye-span only plays a part of the reading process, but gets nearly all the attention in most speed readingtraining.

Why not get the help you deserve and overcome your information overload?

Speed Reading Tips: What Do Hackers and Time Management Have to Do with Speed Reading?

The term "hack" has been used in recent years to refer to a short cut, or more efficient way of doing things. From time to time I will continue to post reading hacks that can help you with both your speed and comprehension, as well as being tactics for more efficient reading. Today's reading hack is going to look at your day and your time management as it relates to reading, whether you read traditionally, or with a "DynamicSpeed Reading" approach.

If you're like most people, one, if not the very first thing you do when you sit at your work station is to open up your email application. Of course you want to do that because you want to: 

·        

• Be responsive to your customers,
• Be responsive to your co-workers,
• "Be respectful" to your friends,

Or, for some other reason that may or may not be as praiseworthy, such as a procrastination technique because your brain hasn't fully awakened Right?

Wrong!!!

Be honest with yourself. What have you noticed about this habit? For most people they realize that a big chunk of their most productive time has vanished leaving them late to get other important tasks and activities accomplished.

Additionally, time challenged people most often find their day being consumed by all kinds of activities that require them to focus outside themselves to the other people in the workplace - phones, email, texts. im's, meetings, drop-ins, etc. Because they want to be perceived as being an "accessible team player," they put off their important work related reading (except for email) for when "things quiet down." Or, they adopt an attitude of, "when I can get around to it."

But here's the problem - "around to it never comes." By the time it does come, you find yourself exhausted from all the other activities of the day. You may try your best to do the reading at these times. But what happens? Do you find yourself falling asleep? Or, do you find your mind drifts off to all sorts of other things rather than the meaning of the material you are supposedly                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           reading?

Unless you are the exception, this is the norm. Not just for you, but for most people in today's digital world.

So here's your Speed Reading and Time Management Hack 

(there's actually 2 parts to this that will save you enormous amounts of time)

            1. Do not open email first thing in the morning (there are some rare exceptions to this rule). Take care of other important high payoff activities first.

            2. Schedule and block off time slots to do your important readings. If you need to read things that will take more than 2-5 minutes, if it doesn't get scheduled, you will fall into the trap as described above. Why shouldn't it scheduled and blocked off like any other important meeting or activity? Schedule your reading time for when your brain is freshest for the day. During work hours you may have to put up temporary "do not disturb" signs, or go to a quieter place in the office.                                                                        

What do you think?

Speed Reading Tips: Supersonic Readers Use 4 Key Concepts and Skills to Read Super Fast

In the last 4 posts I have described 4 Key Concepts and naturally occurring skills that super fast readers apply in order to read faster than the 600 wpm threshold of traditional linear reading. This post summarizes and illustrates graphically these important keys to help you remember and encourage you to apply to your reading practice. Keep in mind that super fast readers seldom discover this on their own accord. The vast majority have needed to be trained. The good news is that you too can learn how to do this. You have these abilities naturally within you. You just haven’t learned how to apply them to your reading.

These Four Key Concepts are:

• Knowing that the mind can understand meanings even when the words appear out of expected grammatical sequence.
• Knowing and applying the fact that we can understand the text upon seeing them and not needing to say hear them in our mind before we understand the meaning. This is called Visual Reassurance.
• Knowing and using our natural dimensional sight experience of moving the clear area of our visual experience of about one to three inches in diameter as we move down as well as across the page seeing overlapping areas of print as we move in a generally downward direction.
• Knowing and applying the powerful learning concept of Whole-Part-Whole that is using “Gestalt” as an organizing principle that enables the mind to understand and retain facts and details, once the bigger picture is in mind.

These key concepts are not necessarily sequenced. They operate together. If there is one that initiates this new approach to comprehension it is the fourth key – Gestalt. Always cue your mind up around the topic first.

Here is an info graphic to help you “see” it all and help create your memory of these critical elements to read super fast and comprehend.

If you are truly interested in changing your reading skills to a level of mastery to get ahead in school, work, or life, then check out the DynamicSpeed Reading Masters Program that will show you how to apply these 4 concepts and supercharge your reading today.

Feel free to share with your friends and colleagues.

Tap The Potential Your Own Mind with Speed Reading

Today, with the internet revolution, the world is changing faster than before. Students and young professionals find themselves in a fix wondering how to keep up with the changing times. Following the traditional study system, by the time we graduate from school, much of what we learn becomes obsolete. So we need to spend time learning how to learn and unlearn to keep up with the times.

Thankfully we have techniques for accelerated learning that can improve our learning curve and we can learn more in less time. This is the need of the hour since so much information is available to us in such a little time. The person who has the most updated knowledge rises in academics as well as at the workplace. Study skills matter more than ever and it is not just the hard work but also some smart work that is needed. Everyone has the same 24 hours a day but different people utilize them differently to get different results. Study skills apply to working professionals, not just students. To remain current and competitive, we must all learn continuously.

Speed reading is a technique that one can learn to get super fast results. The concept is simple. Our mind does not think or understand in the form of words. Through speed reading training, anyone can learn how to read faster. The results are astounding. It is hard to believe how much time a person can save just by reading faster. You can read and comprehend the same amount of text in half the time simply by applying some speed reading tips.

Accelerated reading techniques are scientifically proven and are based on extensive research done on the functioning of human mind. Speed reading courses are now available to help students and professionals from around the world to save their time and become more efficient. It not only improves the quantity but also the quality of your reading. If you take one of the courses available, you can see the difference for yourself within a few days. This is one of the greatest discoveries of our times and we must make the maximum use of it to get ahead in life.

The treasure house lies within you in the form of your own brain. Human brain has much power but most of it is often underutilized. Learn how to use the most of your brain that you already have. Learn how to comprehend better and read many times faster. All this is possible and help is available to find out how. Mastery learning is a great way to get ahead of your peers and get the jobs and promotions you always wanted.

For getting different extraordinary results, we have to do something that ordinary people would not. This different something could be a good online speed reading course which can change your life forever for the good. Use your own mind to work for you and not against you. Look for some of the finest speed reading courses online and get yourself registered. With an improved memory you can hold the information that you read and this will help you perform better in exams as well as at work.

Mastery learning is adopted by more and more professionals these days and if you don't want to be left behind, you must start tapping the potential of your own mind from today!

Speed Reading Tips: Going Beyond Individual Words to Comprehension

In many studies of the reading process and the nature of linguistics, it has been established that the reader knows well over 90 percent of the words. It is therefore unnecessary to have to pronounce each of the words to oneself as you have already learned them.

Before comprehension can be understood we must understand the relative importance and unimportance of words. Words are signals that call forth a response in the deep-well storage banks of the minds. If the words stand alone, the response may be incomplete or erroneous. Words only stand for things we know. The larger the word meaning group, the more accurate and complete comprehension may become. As it is not possible to see large meaning groups at slow rates, the advantage of faster rates for building comprehension becomes apparent. You never have totally accurate comprehension until you have seen all the words. The idea, or the concept, gives the meaning to each word and delegates the relative significance of each word.

The Master Dynamic Speed Reader must also understand the function of the eye in reading. The eye is an extension of the brain. The delicate tissues of the brain must have some protection. The eye offers that protection. The eye makes it possible for the mind to receive image impressions from external sources. The eyes are to the mind what feelers are to an insect. The eyes are to the brain what antenna is to radar. The mind constantly tells you what is in front of you. Sight, in the sense of understanding, is in the brain. When you have mastered the Dynamic Reading method, your mind moves your eyes down the page searching for meaning.

There can be no comprehension if there is nothing in the mind with which to associate the words viewed. Thus, as we generate our thinking, comprehension begins.

Thousands of words must have been placed in the storehouse of the mind before it can be of much value to you. Meaning is in people, not in words. Reading is seeing it with the eye and knowing it with the brain. Reading is thinking with an aid; the aid is the printed page.

This is a good place to again ask the question, how fast should I read? You should only read as fast as your mind can respond. Pre-Reading is the best way to develop high efficiency.

You should therefore be able to read anything as fast as you can think it!!!

The critical questions for a beginning speed reading student is: How fast can
I think? Also, how do I get my mind to think/respond faster in relationship
to the print?

The answers are in the training you do.

Speed Reading Tips: 3 Mind Traps That Will Hold You Back From Your Speed Reading Success

Whether you are beginning your search for a program that can actually help you achieve speed reading success, or, whether you have already tried and failed to master speed reading, you should know that it all starts with examining your mind. Your mind is the place where reading takes place.

Yet the mind is filled with “thinking traps” which filters and shapes how you process new information. Most of the time these traps work “behind the scenes,” of our conscious awareness. Yet, because of their work, our well-intentioned behavior fails.

The first trap is probably where the largest group of people falls into. This first mistaken type of thinking is a belief in magic. Unfortunately the people that believe in magic respond to marketing gimmicks like “Double, triple, quadruple your speed in 15 minutes – Guaranteed!” Anyone who falls for that type of marketing ploy is plainly immature and does not understand a thing about how complex the skill of reading really is. An alternate description is wishful thinking. “Please, can’t I just take a pill?”

Reading is perhaps the most complex and awesome set of cognitive skills the human mind can achieve. To keep it simple, the brain has to do thousands of interconnected firings of various biochemical’s and neurons in extremely sophisticated ways for you to be able to understand the sentence you are reading right now. If that is the case, then consider, if it has taken you a lifetime to develop your skills to the unconscious level of habit where they are right now, does it really make sense that you can permanently change those habits in 15 minutes? What kind of magical thinker are you?

So, if you’re looking for a quick fix, the magic pill approach to learning how to speed read – forget it! Be aware that is a false claim. Before you throw any money down to learn to master speed reading, ask yourself if you are willing to put consistent effort into it. If you are, speed reading can change your life.

The second biggest type of thinking mistake is low self-esteem. Self-esteem means you believe in yourself and believe that you have the power to learn new things and get things accomplished. If you suffer from low self-esteem, you will not learn how to speed read because if you don’t believe in your ability to learn, you will unconsciously do everything in your power to prove to yourself, once again, what a loser you are! Beliefs drive all of your thinking, and your thinking drives all of your behaviors and decisions.

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!” The mind rallies to keep the belief system in place.

For many years, as people started a speed reading program I gave them a short questionnaire asking them: What do you believe about your ability to learn? What do you believe about your ability to learn in an accelerated fashion? Invariably, if someone was struggling with the skills, I looked at what they wrote, and of course, those questions were answered with negative beliefs. They were creating the results they believed to be true before they started their training.

Forget about learning to speed read if you don’t believe in your own ability to learn. However, I do need to put a note of caution on this one. Many times people do struggle to learn in academic or school situations, not because of their ability, but because of poor instruction. So look outside of your school experience to validate your learning ability. Most educational systems teach with one style of learning. We now know from educational psychology that there are at least 8 different learning styles. Your school experience may not have been geared to your learning preference, or style.

The last type of flawed thinking trap is the skeptic. The skeptic type of thinking is a mind-trap habit of viewing every situation through the lens of looking for what is wrong, or flawed in the situation. If a situation is absolutely not perfect, the skeptic discounts everything in the experience. Also, the skeptic looks at things as unproven until “I’m convinced.” The truth is: no one will ever change your basic beliefs (see above discussion about beliefs) but you. Entering into a learning situation with this frame of mind is doomed from the outset.

The skeptic type of thinking is also immature in that it fails to understand the true nature of learning. Most “genius” inventors will state they accomplished their creation through a process of trial and errors. The human mind learns best by failure! Expecting great things to be perfect with one first try is just plain dumb.

When learning to master speed reading, I clearly tell people, they will have lots of struggles and mistakes initially. However, if you take a look at your behavior and compare it to the model of the ideal behavior, you can learn to adjust. That’s the path to mastery of any worthwhile skill.

Another problem with skeptical thinking is that it pulls the skeptic out of the process of direct learning and into an “observer” status. That is all left-brain dominant thinking. Learning is experiential. You have to jump into the “mosh pit” in order to truly understand the experience. Watching from a distance will not bring understanding. Neuro-science has demonstrated the fact that tactile experience involves more parts of the brain and thus learning takes hold better. This engages both left and right hemispheres. From that, I suppose one could say that the skeptic is a half brain!

The strength of experiential learning is another good reason why almost no one learns to master speed reading by reading a book. If you want to master speed reading, destroy your skeptic hat. Jump into the mosh pit!

If any of these types of thinking are true for you, you will be disappointed in the results you will create with your flawed attempts to learn a very complicated set of skills. What you hold to be true in your mind, will be manifested in your life. The good news about flawed thinking is that it can be changed. So I tell these types of thinkers, “Pretend it is possible” From that perspective, you can freely experiment without the mind-traps and then achieve the outcome of mastering speed reading.

When someone enrolls in our Masters Online program, they are assigned a personal coach. The coach understands these mind traps and can help the new learner overcome them. This kind of support is crucial to succeeding in mastering speed reading as a lifelong skill.

Get the help you need to succeed. Enroll in the Dynamic Speed Reading Masters Online Program

Speed Reading Tips: For Super Fast Reading Focus on Meanings, not Grammar

How fast do you read? Have you tried to speed read and only get frustrated because you can’t seem to get through certain speed limits?

I’ve noticed that new students to speed reading often meet speed plateaus when developing their skills. The first speed plateau appears at around 500-600 words per minute (wpm).

The reason why this rate appears so often to hold new learners back is because they are still trying to comprehend the material using their traditional approach of linear sub vocal reading. This kind of reading relies on the grammatical sequence to be heard in the mind, before the mind accepts to meaning. Grammar is the driver. 500-600 wpm is the limiting number as that is the speed at which our brain can understand spoken language.

One of the key concepts and skills to what I call “supersonic reading,” (above the 600 wpm threshold) is accepting meanings without regard to grammatical sequence.

This will allow you to read above those 600 words per minute threshold especially for informational types of reading. Reading is a thinking skill, or cognitive skill. How often do you think in grammatically correct sentences? Thinking is comprised of images, feelings, ideas, and concepts. Seldom do we need to think in grammatical sequence. When learning to speed read, this becomes a challenge merely because of habit.

Understand me you do? Yes, that sentence is purposely out of grammatical sequence to demonstrate that we can understand meaning outside of expected order.

So as you practice to develop your skills, free your mind to interpret the print and not rely on the grammatical sequence. Put the meaning together in your way of saying it. Or, better yet, sum it up with key words as you move over the print.

Speed Reading Tips: Reading Super Fast Means Accepting the Meaning Visually

(This is the second in a series of 5 posts on the keys to supersonic reading – reading at speeds above 600wpm)

If we were in a conversation with each other I might say to you, “Can you imagine a pink elephant?” Immediately in your mind you would probably picture this unrealistic image of a large mammal with big drooping ears, but colored pink rather than grey. Your mind fills in all the details.

How does this apply to reading fast you ask?

When you read nearly anything most often you already know 90% of the printed words and do not have to say them in your mind. However, the “saying in the mind,” which is referred to as sub vocalization, is a habit that stems way back to your beginning days of reading. Your reading mentors had you read individual words before you even read one book. As you progressed you continued to read aloud for quite some time.

At some point in your reading development you were told to read silently. If you asked what that meant, you were probably told to read “to yourself, inside your head.” Then, instead of sounding the words aloud, you merely said them inside your mind. You still decoded the print using a 4-step process: you saw the words, you said the words inside your head, you then heard the words, and finally you understood them.

As an adult reader, you may not say the words aloud, but there are many adults still lip synching as they read. Perhaps you are one of them. On the other hand, perhaps you don’t lip synch. However the 4-step process is still happening. Unless your speeds are over 600 wpm, you are still doing some sub vocalization.

Sub vocalization is how you feel assured of comprehending. The “saying and hearing” give you confidence and assurance. But that assurance is false assurance because our mind has an incredible ability to visualize words we know. The auditory reassurances that sub vocalization provide is not necessary.

“Visual Reassurance” is what readers who read at speeds above the 600 wpm threshold and into the thousands of wpm use. It is one of the keys of “supersonicreading.”

A quick example of visual reassurance is to think of driving in an unfamiliar neighborhood. If you see a red octagonal sign, you don’t sound the word on the sign in your head, do you? Or, do you immediately apply the brakes?

Visual Reassurance can be developed with some practice. It requires a combination of brain stretching exercises, reading exercises, and replacing your word by word linear approach to comprehension to a different path of perceiving and thinking which begins by preparing your mind for reading. All of these developmental tools are part of what you can learn in the Dynamic Reading methodologies.

To Read Supersonically Use Your Natural Sight Experience

In this 3rd part of the series “How to Read supersonically,” or reading above 600 words per minute (wpm), we’ll be exploring the use of the eyes, or the mechanics of reading. If you are to be able to read and understand at rates above 600 wpm, then learning to use your eyes more fluidly and efficiently is certainly important. Unfortunately most other programs focus exclusively on this aspect and miss comprehension, the cognitive aspect of reading.

Traditional (and outdated) approaches to speed reading usually use a tachistoscopic approach to training the eyes, meaning that some external control flashes words on a screen rapidly as a perceptual training exercise. The next step is to then flash 3 words at a time, then six words, then a couple lines, until eventually a whole paragraph might be displayed in a fraction of a moment.

Today there are a number of software programs based on this approach. Some of them are “best sellers.” These programs then tell the learner to focus on 3 “words per chunk,” and then six words, and then a whole line etc. Eventually the reader may achieve some fairly rapid rates using the software as the external pacer tool. However, many complain about not understanding the print (comprehension) and long term results are questionable.

Here’s the problem with these types of training programs – THEY DON’T WORK!

As far back as early 1960, tachistoscopic training has been shown in academic studies to be an ineffective approach. Here’s why:

1. When the learner is finished with the training, the learner has not adequately replaced the external pacer with their own accelerated internal pacing.

2. When actually reading we will be faster in some areas and slower in others depending on how our mind is responding. Mechanically pacing is not natural to effective reading and comprehension. Mechanical pacing is useful as an initial tool for training, but it is not effective for real reading.

3. Depending on the width of the text on the page, expanding your vision to see “whole lines” is outside the area of normal visual clear focus and may cause eye muscle problems. A person’s clear focal area at normal reading distance is 1-3 inches in diameter. If the text expands 6-8 inches across eye muscle strain will occur.

Here’s what you can do instead:

1. Use your natural dimensional sight experience. Notice how your eyes look at anything new in the environment. Start to pay attention to this so that you may soon apply it to reading print. Let’s say you were looking at a new picture on the wall. Your eyes first scan the whole image, and then focus more on the details of the picture. The brain constantly seeks meanings and perceives dimensionally (that means both horizontally and vertically) and in “wholes.”

In fact all the keys that we have spoken about are natural abilities that we use elsewhere, but not when reading!

For most people this dimensional sight area at normal reading distance shows about 1-3 inches in diameter. Experiment for yourself. Look at the center of a page. As you look don’t concern yourself with trying to “read the text” to understand it.  Just notice how much area you can see clearly without moving your eyes.

2. After completing the above, try to keep paying attention to this “dimensional sight” experience when you read. You’ll notice that you can see not only the words on the line you might be focused on, but you can also see words a line or two above and below the one you are focused on. As you become more aware of this dimensional sight, you’ll now understand why the first 2 keys I’ve already written about are important (See previous posts).

Using Dimensional Sight means that you learn to trust your mind’s ability to accept the meaning of the print without expecting grammatical sequencing (see the first post in this series) because you are seeing dimensional areas of the print as you move your eyes in a generally downward direction. It also means that you use your mind’s ability to see and know the words without having to sound them out (see the second post – “Accepting Meanings Visually.”

Play with this idea of moving your eyes in a generally downward direction on the page using this natural “cone of sight” for a couple days. Do this for at least a few minutes over a few pages. You may also want to repeat the process a over the same pages a few times to experiment and see if your mind starts making sense of the meanings. As you do this keep the first 2 Keys of supersonic reading in mind. Feel free to return to this post to comment and/or question about your experience.

There is one more key that helps to facilitate these first three we have discussed so far. Keep reading…

Speed Reading Tips: How to Overcome Your Mind Wandering

What good is it to spend time reading, when reading “speedily” or not, if after your eyes have moved through the material, you discover you have not comprehended the material simply because your mind has decided to take a vacation?

The “always-on” electronic information rich and interconnected culture we live in, challenges  our ability to focus and concentrate. Focusing is an extremely essential trait that few people can claim is not a problem for them, whether reading, or not. Concentration becomes even more difficult when learning to speed read.

When learning to speed read, one of the tough habits to overcome is mind-wandering. Slow readers are often crippled in their ability to comprehend, or understand the material in front of them.  Other inefficient habits like focusing on individual words, makes it harder to grasp the larger meaning. Even readers who comprehend well face challenges of mind wandering when they first learn speed reading skills because they are focusing on how the eyes are moving. However, without the focus on meanings, comprehension will always remain elusive.

Here are 6 things you can do differently:

1. Get plenty of rest. Without enough sleep, the brain  goes into overload more easily. Trying to learn these perceptually challenging skills when fatigued will be a waste of time.

2. Use proper fuel. Your brain needs certain nutrients in order to create the biochemistry needed for learning. Loading up on sugar and caffeine as well as ingesting large amounts of fats and empty calories from processed foods starves your brain of necessary nutrients. Feed your brain with high efficiency fuel.

3. Prepare your mind for practice. Practice means doing essential exercises that are designed to train your brain for higher performance. Before you start your practice sessions, take a few moments to quiet your mind. There are many different ways to do this. One simple way is to shut your eyes and merely watch your breathing pattern for a minute or two until your breathing slows down and deepens into your diaphragm.

4. Be purposeful. Know what you want to get out of the material and how much comprehension is needed for the results of the practice session.

5. Ask yourself continuously. “What’s this about?” over each paragraph. Force your mind to respond to something you see.

6. Stop and Note every few minutes at least what the most important points were that you discovered along the way.

Bonus Tip: Practice Focusing Techniques. There are numerous techniques that can help you build your focus, not just for reading, but in general. Simply watching a candle, or light and noting how long it takes to observe your mind going somewhere else is one of the simplest techniques that you can do. Track how long it takes your mind to wander off and then try to make it longer each time.

Now that you have these nine tactics, apply them whenever you read, not only while learning to speed read.  I’d also like to invite you to learn more at Creating More Powerful Focus and Concentration.

Be sure to leave your comments and questions below. Let me know about your
attempts to control your mind wandering.

For more information visit the site: www.speedreadingtips.com

Click here to get the free reading tips