The 18 Bad Reading Habits

(All of which Proportional Reading Addresses)

Improved comprehension, speed and enjoyment almost always result from eliminating bad reading habits. Proportional Reading (PR) can quickly help individuals end the following eighteen bad reading habits:

1. Poor decoding.

2. Poor automaticity.

3. Poor fluency. This includes rushing past commas instead of pausing (machine gun reading). This can produce situational dyslexia, easily corrected).

4. Guessing when stumped instead of backing up and sounding out text (trying different possible pronunciations if necessary):

1. A. At an individual word.
   

2. B. Cognitive dissonance.
   

3. C. Cognitive projection.
   

5. Cognitive projection as one reads regularly.

6. No or poor use of auditory memory.

7. No or poor use of visual memory.

8. No thinking about what the sentence means. Not reading by punctuation interval and thinking about the relationship of each  punctuation interval in the sentence to the next.

9. No sensing music of sentence.

10. No hearing an inner voice.

11. Subvocalization and lip reading; not reading fast enough.

12. Reading too fast.

13. No outlining (for preview and use during reading or review).

14. No review as one reads by having each sentence repeated.

15. Blaming real physical issues for what is often just a simple lack of proper modeling: lisp, speech defect. One can quickly learn to speak words correctly.

16. Poor and limited use of dictionary due to six problems which are easily corrected.

17. Improper lighting of text; contrast and brightness problems.

18. Physical discomfort while reading/typing (easily corrected):

1. A.Books are not automatically held open at the right height and distance while you sit upright and relaxed, with proper neck, back and shoulder support (instead, reader crouches over book).
   

2. B.Head is turned back and forth from paper to monitor when typing. Keyboard, monitor and printed text should all be in-line.
   

These 18 Bad Habits fall into Seven Natural Groups.

WHICH  OF THESE SEVEN GROUP(S) DO YOU FALL INTO?

If you want help improving your reading, or that of your child or significant other, then you or the person you are trying to help almost certainly fall into one or more of the following seven groups. We can provide help for all of these situations. These seven groups reflect the basic progression of reading skill. See where you fit in.

We can immediately help you overcome reading anxiety and reading avoidance and enable you to process any written text. We use technology and a coach to help you read text instantly at the same time as you develop transferable skills for regular book reading. Most of the time you work on your own with our software. Our coaches help you get started, then work with you periodically to answer your questions and help you advance as quickly as possible. Any book or Internet text can be read with our program. Here are the seven groups. Which one(s) apply to you?

1. You are just beginning to read. You could be in kindergarten or first-fourth grade. You could also be learning English as a second language, at any age. Alternatively, you could be an adult beginner, who just missed out earlier in life.

2. You need remediation in your decoding, automaticity and fluency and reducing guessing. You could be in elementary school or any age up to age 99. You may have numerous gaps in your phonetic skills, which need to be filled.

3. You already have the basic skills of decoding, automaticity and fluency, but need help on basic comprehension skills. The skills here for you to improve include developing your auditory memory, visual memory and thinking about what the sentence is saying. You probably need to start reading by punctuation intervals, thinking about the meaning of each interval and considering how each punctuation interval relates to the rest of the sentence.

4. You are an average reader but your pronunciation and spoken English are poor and you want to improve them. This could be because English is a second language for you, or because you have a speech and language difficulty. Proper voice and text practice will quickly help here.

5. You already are an average or good reader but want to improve your speed and comprehension. You may be a high school, college or graduate school student who just needs to read more and faster. If this is you, we teach you how to turn words into pictures and movies, hear an inner voice and overcome sub-vocalization. We can help the average or good reader quickly learn how to speed up their reading from reading at speech level (150 WPM) to reading 400-800 WPM with substantial comprehension improvement.

6. You have a specific reading problem like dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, low vision (including differential focus and wandering eye), brain trauma, stroke recovery, severe arthritis, spastic motion, delayed audio processing, deafness, muteness or severe reading anxiety. We can show you how to use technology to quickly overcome any of these difficulties.

7. You need help with simple additional tools that greatly increase your comprehension and productivity. These include, instant dictionary access with real voice pronunciation of words, the ability to make an ongoing list of words and their definitions as you read, the ability to copy out text sections as you read, the ability to type notes as you read (with the book and pages held open for you, or as you read on the screen), the ability to sit back and read in comfort without crouching over your book, the ability to edit papers without turning your head, and the ability to edit your writing with voice reading as you make corrections in what you have written.

Sometimes a person falls into more than one group. If you really want help, then you have to talk to us so we know what kind of help to give you. We work with individuals of all ages at home, or at school. We also set up programs at schools, colleges and learning centers, training staff as needed.