A book on Speed Reading.
Ricardo Valls
The following is a short summary of my book "Speed Reading
The Easy Way". The techniques described in this book will help you
achieve a reading speed of 6,000 ch/min in less than six weeks of
training. You will also learn how to find and temporarily retain in
your memory from 90 to 100% of all the important information
contained in the text that you are reading. BTW, only the
information contained in this summary should help you double
your present reading speed.
At the present moment, there is an interactive software version
of this book, which makes its reading a fun and exiting process. For
more details on this and other educational books, including the training
program, Shultz's Tables, as well as for your comments and suggestions,
please send me an e-mail to:
Again, thank you in advance for your time and attention.
SPEED READING THE
EASY WAY.
Introduction.
CHAPTER I: General rules for faster readings.
CHAPTER II: The Integral Reading Algorithm.
CHAPTER III: The Differential Reading Algorithm.
CHAPTER IV: Avoiding articulation.
CHAPTER V: Rational movement of the eyes during speed reading.
CHAPTER VI: Improving your concentration.
CONCLUSIONS
APPENDIX
Copyright c 1994 Ricardo A. Valls.
INTRODUCTION.
It is very important that you understand the purpose of this
type of reading technique. With the Speed Reading Method you can
examine huge volumes of information, find the important parts and
temporarily save them in your mind. The main objective is to
obtain a complete "first impression" of what you are reading.
If you want to study a subject, and to save the information
for a long time in your mind (so it will become part of your
knowledge), then you need a reading technique which I call
"Dynamic reading". This technique will be also offered in an
near future.
My speed reading method will teach you:
a- How to eliminate the articulation during your readings.
b- How to search for the useful information without paying much
attention to the words and phrases.
c- How to extract that information according to the Integral
Reading Algorithm (or I.R.A.) and the Differential Reading
Algorithm (or D.R.A.).
d- How to keep a record of your success through a diary, and
e- How to develop your perispheric vision.
CHAPTER I
General rules for faster readings.
The following rules will help you correct some bad habits
that tend to slow you down while reading.
Rule #1. - Keep a minimum distance of 30 cm between the book and
your eyes.
Rule #2. - The light should be abundant, but not bright. It
should fall on the page you are reading coming from behind your
left shoulder (if you are a right-handed person). Light should
not come from in front of you, because the reflection will go
directly to your face and your eyes will get tired rapidly.
Rule #3. - While reading keep your body straight. It is also
recommended to combine a "siting" reading with a "standing-up"
reading. Never try to read fast lying on a coach or a bed. A
very comfortable position will decrease your ability to
concentrate in the subject.
Rule #4. - The book should be kept almost at the same level than
your eyes, so your neck would not get tired soon. For the same
reason the book should be hold in an angle of more than 45 degrees
respect to the surface of the table.
Rule #4a. - Use a book stand. This will not only allow you to
regulate and fix the degree of inclination and the distance, but
also will free your hands so you could take notes, make marks,
etc.
Rule #5. - Select a place and a time for your readings so you will
not be interrupted. I remind you that in three weeks you will need
only a small percent of the time you are investing now in your
readings.
Rule #6. - YOU MUST NOT READ LOUD. You must not even
move your lips. The mechanical movement of your tongue or lips
are hundreds of time slower than the movement of your eyes,
therefore this will incredibly slow you down.
Rule #6a. - If you have the habit of reading loud or "mumbling"
while you read, put a pencil in your mouth and bit it hard while
reading. If this does not help, do not worry. I have a special
chapter dedicated to this bothersome habit.
Rule #7. - This will be the most important rule of this chapter,
the one that will be responsible for 70 percent of your success:
ŽYou must force yourself to read faster and fasterŻ. Remember
that I will give you the technique, but the effort should be
yours.
CHAPTER II
The Integral Reading Algorithm.
At the end of our first chapter, I gave you a very important
rule, the Rule #7...Do you remember it? ...That's right: ŽYou
must force yourself to read faster and fasterŻ. Now I will give
you the most important rule of all: Ž Read WITHOUT regression Ż.
You are not allowed to go back and reread a word or a sentence
that you did not understand quite well. You must try to figure it
out by the general meaning of the paragraph. But even if you
could not do that, it is absolutely forbidden to go back. Just
mark the place with a hard pencil. ONLY AFTER YOU FINISH
YOUR FIRST READING, you may read again those parts that
you did not understand the first time.
Let us begin with the Integral Reading Algorithm. The I.R.A.
is composed by seven informational blocks that you should fill
during each reading, until it becomes an automatic thing
to do. This process is similar to the one you use to solve any
equation.
X = 3 * 4 / 2 + 2 - 1
X = 7
In the upper equation, you first resolve the multiplications or
divisions. Then you solve the additions and subtractions,
accordingly to the "algorithm" you learned at school. As you can
see now, learning an algorithm, any algorithm, is only a question
of practice. The more you practice, the faster you will learn it.
Our I.R.A. is composed by the following blocks of information:
1.- Title.
2.- Author or authors.
3.- Imprint.
4.- Main subjects.
5.- Facts that support the main subjects.
6.- Criticism, and
7.- New information.
How does this work? It is very easy. Before starting your
reading, write down and try to memorize the first three blocks.
Blocks 4 and 5 should be completed during your reading. And the
last two blocks are better to do after you have finished the
reading.
Now close your eyes and try to reconstruct the IRA completely,
or at least the most important parts of it. (You will find an easy way
to memorize the structure of the IRA in the book)
CHAPTER III
The Differential Reading Algorithm.
For this chapter we have a very important subject: How to
achieve a high comprehension of the text while reading fast?
The first secret is that you have to have a clear idea of
what you want from the text. Why are you reading it for? What are
you searching for in it?
There are three ways to rapidly search for the needed
information, while increasing your reading speed. These are those
ways:
a.- Anticipated reading. An experimented reader can guess a word
just by reading its first two or three letters. Or a complete
sentence just by reading the first words, etc. This technique
will help you increase your speed and find the central ideas
faster.
b.- Detection of the main ideas. This technique will help you
filter the information to detect the "informational zones" or the
25% of useful information.
c.- Remembering reading. This is the mental process during which
you try to link the new information coming from your reading with
the old ones you already have. This will help you to better
understand and memorize the main ideas detected in the previous
step.
At the end of this chapter you will find some exercises to
help you manage these three techniques. But first, I want to
mention a more powerful way to find and retain the main ideas
from any text, The Differential Reading Algorithm or D.R.A.
The D.R.A. is a natural complement to the I.R.A. and we will
us it when trying to fill the blocks numbers 4, 5, and 7. The best
results are obtained when you know from the beginning what to look
for. The D.R.A. has only three informational blocks, which are:
a.- Location of the key words on the text. These are usually
verbs, or words that characterize an action. They depend on the
subject you are looking for. Let us assume that your are reading
a report from your Bank. Your main interest will be the
information concerning to your investments. The rest of the
information will be useless now no mater how interest it could be,
so you will not loose time studying it now.
b.- Creating lines of ideas. Using the key words and the technique
of remembering reading, you should formulate line of ideas to
reorganize the new information from your reading. This way you
filter the information and reduce it significantly.
c.- Creating chains of sense. Now that you have reorganized the
new data, you need to rephrase them WITH YOUR OWN WORDS.
This is the secret to retain the information in your memory. Only by
"translating" that data to your common, day by day language, you
can memorize it.
You will find a step-by-step guide to apply this technique in the
book also. I just want to ad here that the D.R.A. is applicable
even in the case when we do not know in advance what we are looking
for, or when "everything" interest us. However in these cases the
effectiveness of the algorithm will be much less.
CHAPTER IV
Avoiding articulation.
In this chapter we will address a rather common problem with a
lot of readers- the articulation. Articulation is the conscious or
unconscious movement of your lips while reading. Even if you do not
pronounce the words loudly, this movement will reduce the speed of
your reading by hundred of times. So it is very important to avoid
this impediment as soon as possible.
There are plenty of people that do not know they articulate while
reading. You may ask someone to "spy" on you while you read and
see if you move your lips or not.
To eliminate the articulation we will need approximately 20 hours
divided in two weeks. This plan was conceived for people with
unconscious articulation. If that is not your case, just try to refrain
yourself of moving your lips while reading. A simple way to help you
here is to hold a pencil on your mouth so you could not move your lips.
CHAPTER V
Rational movement of the eyes during speed reading.
One of the most important features to guarantee a high speed
reading is the correct movement of your eyes. This means that you must
develop the so called "vertical vision" during your readings. To achieve
this you need to:
a- Reduce to a minimum the number of "visual stops" and their duration.
b- Increase the amount of words that you can see on each visual stop.
This is also known as perispherical vision.
c- Reduce or eliminate the number of regressional movements of your
eyes.
To control the vertical movement of your eyes and increase your
perispherical vision we are going to use the Shultz Tables. (You will
find detailed instructions on how to prepare these incredible useful
Tables in the book).
CHAPTER VI
Improving your concentration.
This chapter's main subject will be about concentration. During
speed reading, it is not only important to focus our attention, but also
to be able to keep it up for long period of times.
Never happened to you that while you were reading, writing or
even listening, your attention fly away and you begin daydreaming?
These fantasies are unconscious reflections of our worries and they
are also the public enemy number one of concentration. The only
way to get ride of these fantasies is to confront them. When you
catch yourself daydreaming, write down the "subject" of your
fantasy and identify its source. Then try to find and eliminate the
motives that provoked your distraction.
By its own nature, any speed reading technique requires not only a
high but a continuous concentration. The exercises you will find in
this chapter will help you achieve this.
APPENDIX 1.- COMING SOON... (or already here)
1.- Speed reading the easy way
2.- Dynamic reading the easy way
3.- Basic reading techniques (1+2)
4.- Oral Presentations
5.- Starting Your Own Business The Right Way.
6.- Learning your way through the information
7.- Learning to Study more and better.
8.- Organizing your notes
9.- The School's Student Survivor Kit (1,2,4)
10.- How to improve your writing skills, a basic tool for the researcher
11.- Putting your ideas in a paper
12.- The High School's Student Survivor Kit (#1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 11)
13.- The University's Student Survivor Kit (#1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11)
14.- How to conduct a research
15.- The strategy of a scientific research
16.- Verifying your results
17.- The Graduate's Student Survivor Kit (#1,2,4,6,8,10,11,14,15,16)
18.- Mathematical modelling the Easy Way
19.- The Researcher's Survivor Kit (#2-8,10,14-16,18)
Again thank you for your time and attention. I welcome any comments you
may have.
Madhu Rammoorthy
Ricardo Valls <ric...@step.polymtl.ca> wrote:
>Dear Friends,
>
> The following is a short summary of my book "Speed Reading
>The Easy Way". The techniques described in this book will help you
>achieve a reading speed of 6,000 ch/min in less than six weeks of
......
.......lots of junk deleted...
What exactly does your posting or your "book" have to do with sci.research.
careers ????
--
Madhu Rammoorthy
School of Chemical Engineering
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332-0100.