by Roger Seip
A WPM of under 200 is below average, and it means you're what we call a talker. Operating at this speed, you are essentially reading out loud to yourself. What I mean is that you are saying every word you're reading in your head. You may not notice it, but it's likely that when you read your lips move. The positive in this is that you're a very careful reader and you believe comprehension is way more important than speed. The downside of this is that reading takes you a long time, plus you're operating under an incorrect premise. Reading slowly does not necessarily increase comprehension—in fact, the opposite is usually true.
A WPM of 200 to 300 is average. It's average for adults, and it's average for sixth-graders. At that stage of your reading development, you had become effective at reading one word at a time. Reading one word at a time seems logical, but with the way your eyes actually operate while reading, the idea of reading only one word at a time will limit your speed. With a couple of other habits you probably have, it will also make your eyes and brain tired more quickly than opening up the throttle.
A WPM of 300 to 450 is above average, and it means a couple of things. It means that as a reader, you are what we call a thinker. You're not focused on hearing every word in your head, your eyes are moving a little faster, and you're probably thinking of concepts when you read. You're making connections and/or actively processing what you read. It also means that you probably do a lot of reading, either because you like to or you have to. Just through sheer practice volume, you move slightly faster than average. Congratulations.
Statistically, at least 90 percent of the readers of this book are starting in one of these three places, but just in case:
Over 450 is considered “tuned-up.” Either consciously or unconsciously, you are doing something that allows you to take in more than one word at a time, and/or you may not be trying to read every single word. If you are in this range, congratulations! You're probably doing some of the things we'll teach in this section.
The best news is that no matter where you are starting from right now, you unquestionably have the ability to make massive improvements to both speed and comprehension pretty quickly.
I've done it myself. When Abby Marks-Beale tested me the first time, I was 38 years old, and I thought I was above average in reading speed. I like to read, I know the importance of reading, and I do it a lot. I was correct, I came in at 340 WPM, about as fast as an above-average sixth-grader. Just by learning how to use my eyes more rhythmically I immediately went to over 700, and a little practice brought me close to 1,000 WPM. Other techniques (taught in the next chapter) have taken and kept me even faster than that, with comprehension that's at least as good as it was at lower speeds.
Our students have done it all over the country. In our live workshops we've had middle-schoolers, high-schoolers, and college students go from 200 WPM to over 1,200 in the space of one day, with a significant increase in comprehension. I've seen adults from all walks of life get the same results with every conceivable kind of reading material.
The fastest readers in the world consistently read 5,000 to 10,000 words per minute, with near perfect comprehension. I know it sounds crazy, but the potential of the human mind is, in fact, astounding. Do you need to do 10,000 words per minute? Probably not. I mean, that level essentially represents a lifetime of practice like a Shaolin monk. But consider what it would mean for your effectiveness if you could just double your speed and keep your comprehension the same. More important, consider the impact of being able to read however fast you want, at whatever level of comprehension you need, based on what's right for you in your particular situation. Because that's what you can do quickly, with just a little training.
The Concept of “Gears” in Smart Reading
It's helpful to understand the concept of “gears” when reading. There are times when you will want to be very methodical and very detailed. You're reading a report, a contract, or perhaps some material that is totally foreign to you, but you need to really get it for a test. Other times, you're reading for more general information, maybe in something where you already know a lot about the subject. There are times when slow is appropriate, others when the need for speed is there.
Grown-up reading means that you can adjust your speed in the way that works for you in the given situation. When driving a car, first gear is perfect for going 15 miles an hour past the school zone, but if you're out on the freeway, first gear will literally burn out your engine. Most people, starting around sixth grade, only operate in one gear ever—first. When you develop higher “reading gears,” you give yourself choices you didn't have before.
Three Reading Habits You Can Reduce
To develop those higher gears, you first need to be aware of what's holding you back. If you know how to read at all, there are three things that you habitually do while reading. You may not know you do them, but you do. Reducing any or all of them will dramatically improve your focus, your speed, and your comprehension.
Mind Wandering (aka Daydreaming)
Have you ever been reading, reached the end of a page or chapter, and realized you had zero clue as to what you just read? That's because your mind wandered away. It's weird—your eyes actually traveled over the page, but your brain was occupied with—who knows? Point is, you had literally zero comprehension of what you read, and you then had to start all over again!
Now there is actually a place and time where this habit is useful. When what you're reading causes your mind to make a connection and wander to something related to your reading material, that's actually very helpful. Daydreaming is totally unhelpful when your mind is just, well, wandering.
The basic fix for this habit is simple—go faster! Your mind wanders largely because it's bored. If it has the ability to easily take in, say, double what you're currently doing (it does), your brain just has too much extra capacity and it will use it for something else. When you challenge your brain with more speed, your brain loves it and stays more engaged. This will dramatically boost comprehension.
Regression (aka Going Back)
Nearly everyone, while reading anything, will regularly go back and reread what they just read. If you watch their eyes, you can actually see it happening. Most of the time we don't even know we're doing it! As you can imagine, this process of regression slows you down dramatically, and it's usually not necessary.
Again, there is a time and a place for this habit. If you go back in your reading purposefully looking for something you missed, then regression will assist your learning. Usually however, regression is a result of either your mind wandering or just habit. In these cases, you're unnecessarily doubling the amount of time you're spending.
The best way we've found to reduce this habit is to cut off your escape route. One of the techniques taught in Chapter 5 does this brilliantly and will pretty much eliminate unwanted regression.
Subvocalization (aka Mental Whispering)
The last habit you probably want to reduce is called subvocalization—the attempt to hear every word in your head. If you're doing this, you limit your reading speed to no more than your speaking speed, which is only about 150 WPM.
Subvocalization is actually wonderful when you're reading a form of literature where the hearing of words is integral to the experience. Some material is written expressly to hear it—scripture, dialogue, and poetry fall into this category. Outside of that, subvocalization serves no purpose other than to slow you down and make you work a lot harder than you need to.
The best way to reduce this habit (actually, all three habits) is to use your eyes and/or hands (your Smart Reading tools), more actively and mindfully, learning to engage the visual centers of your brain in favor of the auditory centers. This is the essence of what you'll learn next.
Reinforcement and Bonuses: This chapter has been Memory Optimized™ for your benefit. For your brief lesson and some great bonuses, visit www.planetfreedom.com/trainyourbrain with the access code in the About the Author section. Enjoy!
&nbs
p; Chapter 5
Your Smart Reading Tools for Improved Focus and Speed
If you want to improve your focus, your speed, your comprehension (or all three), what do you do? This chapter will give you a little theory; more important, it will help you understand the tools you have at your disposal, then teach you the most effective and efficient way of using them.
The Mechanics of the Reading Process
At its base level, “reading” simply means “to look at and understand symbols.” It's important to understand that if you are not understanding, you are not reading. There is a difference between “speed reading” and “speed looking.” You have two innate tools that are necessary for reading, and one that can be helpful, but isn't necessary. Your eyes and your brain are necessary for reading—inherently, reading is a visual process. Your hands or other tools are not necessary, but when used properly, your hands and other tools can be extremely helpful for enhancing your focus and overall engagement.
One big key to understand is that your mouth is usually profoundly unhelpful, since it slows you down. Again, except for the circumstances listed previously (poetry, dialogue, or scripture), reading should engage the visual centers of the brain, which as you've seen are extremely fast. Mouth reading (subvocalization) engages the auditory centers, which are much slower. As much as possible, leaving that auditory part of your brain out of your reading will make your process much smoother and more efficient. It can take some conscious effort to let go of this habit, but it's worth it.
Ultimately, you will choose to read faster with your brain. The brain is ultimately what decides how much it will allow in. However, training your eyes is always the correct place to start, as nearly everyone uses their eyes in an undisciplined manner.
Understanding Your Eyes
When you read, your eyes jump. Specifically, they jump four times per second; if you watch it, it's pretty amazing (and a little freaky). In our live workshops, we have people pair up and read some text with a partner watching their eyes. What's amazing is that from an outside perspective you can actually see what people do with their eyes when they read. The most frequent word that people use to describe how it looks is “typewriter.” Try it out sometime. If you can find a willing partner, watch them read some text and you'll see their eyes hop from word to word, left to right, then go back to the left, like a typewriter. If you watch long enough, you'll also see their eyes regress, either back to the left or even back up the page (for a full visual of what I'm describing, check out the bonus video listed at the end of this chapter).
The only people you won't see this typewriter action with are people who read more than 500 words per minute (WPM) approximately. With people who read at that speed, you'll see that their eye movements are much smoother and more fluid. It's quite remarkable, and here's why this is important.
Two Eye-Movement Terms You Should Understand
Fixation: When reading, your eye muscles will cause your eyes to stop four times per second. Each stop is called a fixation. When your eyes are stopped is the only time that information can register through to your brain. While moving between jumps, the eyes are moving so fast that nothing gets in. So while you're reading, information is entering through your eyes four times per second. This is largely a biological process, not one that can be trained. It's just how eye muscles work. You can't really influence how often your eyes stop. What you can influence is how many words you let in at each stop.
Eye Span: Your eye span is the width of text that your eyes take in every time your eyes stop. Most people read with the narrowest possible eye span: one word per stop. The math ads up, too: if you read one word per fixation, that's four words per second. That's exactly 240 words per minute—average sixth-grade reading speed! The nuts and bolts of increasing reading speed is simply to widen your eye span and take in more words at each stop. It's just like if you're trying to walk across a field, being locked into taking four steps per second. If you take little steps, you'll take a long time to get across the field. Longer strides at the same rate get you there much faster and with less effort.
Widening your eye span is actually quite easy to do. It just takes a little training of the eye muscles, and a little practice.
Improving Your Eye Function
Let's start with the muscles that move your eyes.
Do this exercise:
Stand up straight and look straight ahead. Without moving your head, look as far to your left as you can. Then look as far to your right as possible. Then go back and forth on a level plane with your eyes five times as fast as you can. Now sit down.
Did that make you dizzy or hurt your eyes? It does for most people, and that means you have poorly trained, weak eye muscles. To strengthen and condition those muscles, try doing the exercise you just did a couple of times a day. You'll notice very quickly (even after just one or two days in most cases) that this exercise becomes much less taxing as your eye muscles strengthen.
Here's how to get your eyes to move in a more rhythmic manner when you read. The idea is that you want to be able to feel your eyes kind of bouncing along the page. Here's an exercise that we do in our live workshops. Read the following page, then read it again, following the instructions given.
Discipline Your Eyes Exercise
The purpose of this page is to discipline
the little muscles that move the eyes from left to right.
Incorrect habits of reading have frequently caused
these muscles to behave in an undisciplined
and inefficient manner. Try to make your eyes march ahead
in three rhythmic leaps across the line.
Try to feel the tiny tug on these six
little muscles that move each eye. You will note
that some phrases are short others are longer.
This is done intentionally. The amount
of line width that various people can see differs
with the individual. In these exercises try to group
as one eyeful all the words in the unit;
look at a point just about midway in each word group.
At times you will feel as though the field
of your vision is being stretched. So much the better!
At other times the phrase will be too short.
We shall strive for wider and wider units as we proceed.
In that way your eyes will grasp more and more
at a glance. Read this exercise two or three times
every day for a few days. Try always
to cut down on the time that it took you
to read it each preceding time. You will soon get
the knack of it. Do not let your eyes “skid”
or “slide” when you look at a phrase.
Look at it in the middle. Give it a strong,
fleeting glance. See it all in one look;
then be off to see the next and the next,
and so on to the very end of the exercise.
And now, how long did it take you
to read this? Mark your time on the bottom of this page.
How did that go? To train your eyes for rhythmic movement, read that page using your “eye bounce” a couple of times a day. Don't worry about comprehension; the point of the exercise is simply to train your eyes to move rhythmically. And time yourself. If it took you longer than one minute, try and get it below a minute. Keep working at it until you can get it under 30 seconds, then under 20, then under 15. At that rate, your eyes would be moving at a 1,000+ WPM pace.
In fact, we recommend that you keep a copy of this page (see the bonus section for a downloadable copy) everywhere you read, and use it to groove those muscles before launching into any reading session. Like a golfer on the putting green, you'll serve your eyes well if you warm them up in this fashion before reading anything. Fortunately, because the eye muscles are so fast twitch, they respond to training very quickly. Practice the eye exercises for a few days and you'll notice that your eyes don't get tir
ed nearly as fast.
Using Your Hands Properly
Your second tool for boosting reading speed is your hands. As we mentioned, it is not necessary to use your hands at all, but most of our students find it very helpful. The reason why is twofold:
1. Using a hand technique (or pace card) makes reading more physically engaging. Fact is, you're less likely to fall asleep! As you learned in the memory section of Train Your Brain, the more active or physically engaged you are while learning, the better your learning turns out.
2. Your brain is hardwired to make your eyes notice motion. This dates back to our hunter/gatherer days, when motion indicated something that either wanted to eat you or you wanted to eat. One inherent challenge with most reading material is that it doesn't move. This is why it's so easy to get distracted while reading. A bird flying by the window can do it, the TV will do it, just about anything that moves can attract your attention. Using a hand or card technique puts movement on the page you are reading, in a way that should enhance your focus and help your eyes move more rhythmically and quickly.
In our live workshops, there are 13 hand/card techniques we have our students experiment with. Here I'll give you the ones that we see used most often. Experiment with some until you find one that feels comfortable and enhances your focus.
The first category includes what I call the finger pull techniques. You use either your right or left index finger for this. Not a pen, not your knuckles, your index finger, aka your pointer. The idea of the finger pull techniques is that as you're reading, you pull that finger vertically down the page at a consistent pace that is just slightly faster than your eyes can keep up with. The idea is to keep that finger moving down the page consistently—no stopping and no going back up the page with it. You can try pulling your pointer down the left margin, the right margin, or the center of the column of text. Don't push so hard that you're fingertip turns white; just do a nice easy pull down the page. If you want to really engage your body, try what's called double pointer pull. That's where you're using both your right and left pointers at the same time, going down both right and left margins. Take a moment and try these out on any page of text in this book. See which one you like best.