Thread: Speed reading programs.

(computer software)

So what is everyones take on speed reading programs? I've ordered one, just for the hell of it, I don't expect it to work, but if it does work I must experiment to find out like I always do no?

Anyway, i'm trying that "eye-Q" thingy. It feels like it might help me a teeny tiny bit through the fact that i'll be reading more, I don't like reading books, they are too much of a hassle...turning pages GGGEEEEEEEZZZ what am I super man? =P


Lol so anyways, what are your takes on concious spead reading?
There are supposedly gifted people born with an innate talent for it, like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Bergier for example

I think it's impractical to expect to reach a level that the "naturals" have, but you CAN train to speedread. I think "not liking to read books" will affect your progress, though. Let's face it, no matter how nice the program you ordered is, the bottom line is, to learn to speed-read, you'll have to read - a lot. And printed books are just nicer on your eyes.

The brain uses something called "chunking" as part of many of its activities. This includes remembering phone numbers (you know how annoying it is when someone has bad phone number tempo on a voice message).

Reading is the same thing. When you're first learning to read, you process letters one at a time, because you're not used to the holistic aspect of recognizing words. Eventually, your eyes move from word to word and learn to recognize them right away, without having to check the letter sequence.

You can raed tihs setcenne, eevn touhgh it's gibebrsih.

You can take any text and scramble the letters within the words. If the first and last character are in their original position, you can read it almost as fast as if it were correct. I think extending this idea is what speedreaders do. They can see bigger chunks. Entire sentences, and often, entire paragraphs.

Let us know how it works out!

Will do.

Call me old fashion. Isn't reading mean't to be slow, what is the point of reading something and forgetting it

What not to do?
A casual reading through the books doesn't help much, because the concepts just pass by the mind without settling themselves in your memory. But the time that you have spent in such casual reading never comes back. Moreover a casual reading is boring.

http://fragrant.ideas.googlepages.com/2.html
Well, saying that I normally read maths books, which is just doing hundreds of problems. Now if you speed read a maths book I bet you won't get anything useful out of it, like being able to do maths or solve maths problems.

Also don't trust wikipedia when they say somebody can read books superfast or has a photographic memory, as it is proberly untrue.

I got a book out on speed reading and it focused alot on keeping the eyes more still and being able to see a wider range. I'm already good at skimming, and if I'm reading I prefer to go slow and be able to stop and think about it and basically think and read at the same time. Speedreading would be helpful for giant business work though, although it would probably be good to understand it lol. I prefer not to have to work to read better. The book made a big deal about all the time you save when reading books for pleasure throughout the year but I would prefer to get the meanings and feelings of the books rather then just learn the storyline. If it beneficial to you though, what do you have to lose (besides alot of money on the dang programs lol).

You may also want to search this Forum for Photo reading.
There are some insightful topics on that.

Well it could be lieing, but it is supposed to actually help comprehension...

I think it depends on the density of the material. If you're reading "Godel, Escher, Bach" or something, then you'll have to slow down. But if you're reading harry potter, you can probably speed read and not miss too much detail. It's like lossy compression (e.g. jpeg). The loss of quality is negligible compared to the amazing savings in file size.