Overview of Approach

Definition: Variable-Speed Computer Voice and Text Reading means having selections of text read out loud at the speed you wish with a computer generated voice, while you read ahead of the voice. You interactively advance or repeat this voice as desired. It also means that you can adjust the amount of text that is read out loud each time from a word, to a phrase, to a punctuation interval, to a sentence, to a paragraph, to a page, as your needs change.

It is now possible to read textbooks and novels, as well as your teachers' notes and your own papers and notes and almost anything on the Internet, in variable-speed computer voice and text on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, or Mac laptop or desktop computer. Voice and text speed is variable from normal speaking speed to about 500 words per minute. Text can be displayed in large font and you can turn pages automatically, manually, or remotely. All students can improve instantly with this approach.

This approach is for all students and ages: K-12, College, and Adult.

As students read their assigned reading with this approach, they become better readers of regular books. Students transfer the skills they learn with variable-speed voice and text to reading regular books.

You do not need to buy any new software or a computer. This approach will work with the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad or Mac computer that you already own or have access to. All you need to do is to learn how to do this approach.

Reading with variable-speed voice and text enables almost all average readers and all ESL and struggling readers to instantly double their reading speed while increasing their comprehension, as they read assigned reading from their teachers at normal speaking speed. Focus and concentration also increase immediately. Later in this article you will see exactly why.

Dramatic improvement occurs with two hours of instruction. In the first hour of instruction students learn how to read their assigned reading, with real understanding and at half the time. In the second hour of instruction, students learn how to increase their comprehension even more, as they also double their reading speed once again (from 150 words per minute up to 300 words per minute). By doing the free homework assignment, and practicing some by actually reading their assigned reading, students can quickly increase their initial reading speed 100% once again, to 450 words per minute.

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Your ability to participate in class discussions and perform well on exams will improve dramatically with the first hour of use. In many cases students actually start to read (and enjoy) their assigned reading. Everybody starts to have a better class experience, including teachers. As you improve your reading with this approach, you will simultaneously improve your ability to listen, speak, concentrate, take notes, and write.

Each chapter, or group of chapters, or book, or Internet article can come to you as an E-mail attachment from your teacher. Each chapter is an HTML document, which is the format that is used offline by web browsers. You simply open up this HTML document in your Browser, and start reading. Alternatively you could download HTML documents in a number of other ways like with your Dropbox, or right from an Internet page. Once loaded into your device or computer, the text stays there until you delete it. You pick up your reading where you left off. You can read online, or offline, or with WiFi.

The average 40 page chapter in a textbook can be read with high speed voice and text in two hours, with an experience equal to going to the movies. Attention stays focused for the entire time.

In addition to all average and slow readers, this approach is ideal for people dealing with ESL, learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, low vision, or Aphasia; or for people in wheelchairs or otherwise suffering from a wide range of physical challenges (spinal injury, stroke, brain trauma, or severe arthritis). Pages can turn automatically, or stop turning as soon as your focus wanders, or when you want more time.

What makes all this possible is a specific set of formats for presenting existing text, combined with specific sound options, and an understanding of a particular approach to reading. The specific approach to text formats, and presentation with sound, and the specific set of reading principles are known as Proportional Reading.

With the Proportional Reading approach, text can be read in any of five basic formats: word by word, phrase by phrase, by punctuation interval, by sentence, by paragraph, and by page. Text can  then be reviewed by sentence, or continuously from page to page, and with variable voice speed.

This approach enables each reader to have voice and text presentation that is tailored to his or her exact needs. The elementary student and adult beginner get presentation one way, while the high school senior and college student get presentation another way. Everybody advances upwards as soon as they are ready. Poor readers become average readers, and average and good readers become excellent readers. Each person starts at the level they are currently at and progresses forward. Students are in control of how they read and can change the settings as needed. Furthermore, they can read their assigned reading anywhere they happen to be, using earphones.

At any point, students can use this approach to read novels, and course books, and assigned articles on the Internet.

This approach can help over 40 different reading challenges instantly.

The initial instruction in Reading Improvement using the Proportional Reading approach can be done either of two ways.  You can do it at your home with a reading coach in one-on-one online sessions, or in small group sessions at school or college. The one-on-one course or the group presentation each take two hours. On site teaching and staff training can also be arranged. Alternatively, you can try to do it online for free, working independently at www.helpmyreading.com/Site/Client_Instruction.html.

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Why Understand the Specific Features of this Reading Approach

1. If you do not feel that something is (or might be) different and superior, why would you spend any time investigating it further?

2. Understanding what this approach is all about helps you understand the specific reasons why it might work for you, or your students.

3. After you have tried it and used it successfully, you will have a better understanding of why it works for you, and how to transfer the principles you have just learned to reading regular books.

Why This Approach Works

There are fifteen main reasons why this approach to reading books and notes is different and why it works so well.

1. When you read with text and voice, the sound is right behind your visual input. You do not have to slow down, or wonder whether or not you got the word right, because the sound is right there to correct you, if need be. You are free to concentrate on the meaning. This alone will enable you to read much faster with better comprehension, even at slow or average speed. Thus, almost all students see an instant improvement in speed and comprehension.

Currently, most people mistakenly think that computerized voice is just for people who are blind or severely disabled. This is totally wrong. Computerized voice is by far the best and fastest way for slow, average, and good readers to become excellent readers. Read on to learn more reasons why this is so.

2. The text is ideally read out loud by punctuation intervals within the sentence, with a pause between punctuation intervals and a long pause between sentences for you to think about what you have just read. A punctuation interval is all the words from the beginning of a sentence to the first comma or other punctuation mark, or end of sentence. The sound automatically trains the reader to read by thought segments (punctuation intervals).

Another way to say this is that this presentation of text enables one to read with fluency at average speed, without anxiety or compulsive re-reading.

This approach allows you to listen to the “music” of punctuation intervals within the sentence, each separated from the next by short pauses at punctuation points. The appreciation of this music greatly enhances comprehension.

Note: If a student is just starting to read, or recuperating from stroke or brain injury, the cognitive interval (amount of text presented at a time) is shortened to just a word or phrase at a time. It is then lengthened as soon as the client is ready.

In addition, voice and text enables students to hear how new vocabulary sounds in actual use.

Actively reading the text just ahead of the sound has another advantage. The student gets to see in advance, or preview, what is gong to be read. This greatly clears up in advance confusion from just hearing the text read, without seeing it as well. Parenthetical text is especially confusing to just hear. Paragraph headings that are just in bold and not accompanied by periods are another source of confusion, if not seen before being heard. Semi-colon constructions can also be very confusing if not seen before being heard.

3. At high speed, well above the speed of talking out loud, the reader overcomes lip movement, whispering, speaking out loud and subvocalizing, while reading by punctuation intervals. Thus, the reader learns to read with fluency at any speed. At high speed the reader also learns to hear an inner voice and how to turn descriptive text into pictures and movies, without subvocalizing.

The approach of presenting voice and text together, by sentence, enables most readers to read much faster than they can by using either voice or text alone.

4. A blank line ideally separates individual sentences from each other, and each new paragraph also starts with indented text. This greatly increases the visual organization of each paragraph. This approach also gives extra time to process the development of ideas in the paragraph at advanced speed, when using high-speed voice and text. Ideas are not presented so fast that they run over each other before they can be absorbed. In manual mode, there is an automatic pause at the end of each sentence for as long as the reader wants/needs to think about what he or she has just read. Then the student presses the forward arrow to continue, or repeats the sentence as often as necessary.

This approach assures that all titles and sub-titles are individually focused on, and not just “run over”. Introductions of new direction and new subject matter are not missed.

In addition, with both a blank line and a sound pause between sentences, no highlighting of text is needed, as the reader easily knows which sentence he or she is reading. Eliminating highlighting is good because highlighting as it moves along can often cause one to fall asleep.

5. Any page or section of text can be repeated as desired. Voice speed can be changed up or down as desired, and both brightness and contrast can be adjusted as desired for the needs of each reader. You can also choose between voices of different languages for texts written in different languages.

6. The reader sets individual letters of text on the screen ideally to about 3/8" high with ideally approximately 24 characters or spaces on a line. This means that there is a tremendous amount of visual information on each letter and each word. The size of the text can be adjusted as desired. With these settings the entire width of text can be seen very quickly. You can also choose between different fonts. The result is that text is much easer to read, at any speed. This approach enables students to read text with little or almost no eye movement.

7. The flow of text with sound can go manually or automatically from one page to the next, with or without any need to manually turn or flip the page. This greatly increases focus and concentration. Students can read textbooks one sentence at a time the first time through, looking up new words and re-reading text as needed. The second time through students can read text continuously. Students can often also read novels with continuous reading the first time through. Continuous reading is also ideal for reading while working out on a treadmill.

Furthermore, reading a sentence or paragraph at a time means that the program will automatically stop as soon as the student drifts off, looses focus, or falls asleep. This works because the student fails to press the button to move on to the next amount of text, or turn the page.

In addition, during regular reading on the iPhone or iPod Touch, turning pages with your fingers is cumbersome at best. Using VoiceOver on with the sound optionally muted enables you to move by sentence quickly and easily, using the forward and back arrows on the keyboard. The third time through text, students may want to read the text without voice accompaniment. Muting the sound makes this possible.

8. The sound acts as a pacer. As you increase the speed of sound, you automatically see how to adjust your eye movements to keep up. You quickly learn how to read faster.  This is a transferable skill to reading regular printed books.

9. By having the thoughts presented at the rate that you are able to think, you quickly develop the ability to hear and speak in larger thought groups, i.e. by punctuation intervals and sentences. This is a great help for listening to lectures and speaking clearly and correctly with others. Pausing at the end of punctuation intervals and sentences is central  to clear communication, whether transmitting or receiving.

In addition, by being able to easily adjust the reading speed of the voice accompaniment, students can accelerate rate of material presentation. This will prevent getting board and falling asleep from hearing text spoken at too low a speed, as often happens in lectures.

10. The ability to quickly process sentences enables one to see the relationship between sentences in a paragraph, and the relationship of one paragraph to the next. This ability to see the larger pattern greatly helps memory and recall.

11. Listening to the sound on earphones greatly increases focus and concentration, as extraneous sounds are eliminated. It is easily to focus when reading on a bus or train or plane, or in a busy room with other people. Furthermore, the sound and visual processing both appear to be happening in the middle of the brain, in an exploding and expanding event that is totally absorbing.

12. The screen display of text and sound ideally occurs right above the actual text. Only the main text is presented on the screen. All graphics (pictures, charts, illustrations, maps, tables, etc.) as well as all inserts, captions, footnotes, glossaries, appendixes, and indexes are left in the main text. The student pauses the spoken display of text to look at the graphics, etc, in the actual textbook below, as appropriate. The combination of high-speed voice and text with printed graphics provides a highly focused movie experience.

13. It is easy to copy text without typing and to write your own original notes as you go along. It is also easy to create an outline without typing, and to create a list of new vocabulary words as they come up, also without typing.

14. Re-reading the chapter can be done at much higher speed the second time through.

15. It is very easy to correlate any page of the actual book with the text on the screen.

Learn more about our two-hour one-on-one or small group Course on Reading Improvement, or do it for Free on your own.

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Try Out Free, Right Here, Right Now, Reading Moby Dick with this Approach.

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To learn more about the PR approach click on the following articles:

Experience the Joy of Reading Well

The Nine Major Benefits of Using Proportional Reading

Seven Misconceptions about Reading Improvement

Ten Perspectives on Proportional Reading with Grant Application

How to Read Textbooks and Novels

Why Use a Reading Coach

Short Overview of Our Two Hour, 1-on-1 Course

Detailed Description of Our Two Hour, 1-on-1 Course

Go to Our Free Reading Course

Assistive Technology

Contact Us for Help

Proportional Reading

50 Broadway, #31

Beverly, MA 01915

Contact Person: John F. Adams

Phone: 978-927-9234

E-mail proread@tiac.net

Internet: www.helpmyreading.com