In the second of his posts introducing speed reading tips, Alex Garcez our Speed Reading Coach explains the differences between using the left side of the brain and the right side when you are reading. Alex, over to you...
Time to read this post:
Slow reader:.........3 minutes 12 seconds
Average reader:.....1 minute 36 seconds
Fast reader:..........................59 seconds
Speed reader:.......................29 seconds
Today I want to explain to you how speed reading works. We use the left side of the brain to read. While reading silently to ourselves, we hear our own voice repeating the words inside our head. If you pay attention to this as you read this email, you will hear your own voice inside your head saying the words back to yourself.
So what you are doing is looking at the words, pretending to say them and pretending to hear them just to understand the text. A lot of time pretending to do something that is not necessary. No wonder it's easy for you to end up distracted and have your mind drift away!
We talk at a speed of around 100 to 250 words per minute. When I say that you can read faster, you might be concerned this just means the little voice inside your head will be saying the words faster, like an excited football commentator.
Well, don't worry, that's not the case. Let me tell you that, in fact, you'll learn how to use the right side of your brain to read faster and silence the voice inside your head.
You'll learn to look at the words and understand them straight away without pretending to say them to yourself in your mind. So, by learning to speed read you'll start to enjoy reading much more and will save time reading your documents, books - emails, too.
You now know why it is easier to speed read rather than read in the traditional way? Because you won't waste time talking to yourself so you'll get more focused. As a result, your comprehension will be enhanced automatically.
You may think that you already read quickly but how do you know? Who would you compare yourself with? There are no set standards. You probably learnt to read as a child in the traditional way and sometimes you get bored and distracted, read a few paragraphs and then skip back to re-read a paragraph that you can't remember or didn't understand. Does that sound familiar?
In my next post I will show you how to measure your reading speed. I will guide you through the process so that you can see the difference before and after applying my methods.
