Tutorial for reading Textbooks, Novels and other Literature with high-speed voice and text

1. Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:59:40 -0500

This tutorial is a short course on how to apply all the new principles and new skills you have learned to reading textbooks, novels and other literature with full pagination. In order to teach these skills we will use voice at adjustable speed, quickly getting to be very fast.

In this set of movies we are going to examine text presented at a number of different speeds. We are going to discuss the different experience you have at each speed and how you should try to process the text at each faster presentation.

Our software allows you to read up to 400-500 words per minute with voice accompaniment. You will quickly realize that as you increase the speed of the sound, you need to change your eye motions to keep up.

In other words, this tutorial and our software will automatically help you learn how to improve your speed and comprehension as you read. Each time you are ready to move up in speed, you will learn how to improve your eye movements to match the new speed.

Here is the short list of key principles and skills we teach:
• Overcoming lip reading, whispering and sub-vocalizing
• Hearing an inner voice as you read
• Turning descriptive text into pictures and movies
• Reading by punctuation intervals and relating them to each other
• Recognizing all words at short exposure
• Recognizing words 1-4 characters in length with your peripheral vision

This instruction is essential to help you make the journey.

As you get up in speed and begin to read much faster, you will realize that the text in front of you will start to appear as a single picture in front of you. The picture will cease to appear to move. This is the goal for you to achieve.

We are going to get to this goal step by step. Each succeeding step until the conclusion will have practice text. For this tutorial, we will use the Call of the Wild by Jack London. You should set your Proportional Reading software for the indicated voice speed in each step.

2. Section Two

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:58:40 -0500

2A. We will start at speed 190. This speed number is just a number; it is not the actual number of words per minute. At speed 190 you are just at the speed of reading out loud. At this level you can follow along with your eyes and see each word as the voice pronounces the text.

You will notice that the voice pauses at the commas and at the periods and other punctuation points.

Try to feel the text being presented by punctuation intervals, i.e., all the words to a comma and then a pause. Then come all the words to the next comma or period, or other punctuation mark, and then comes another pause.

2B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 190.

3. Section Three

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:57:04 -0500

3A. You should not have had any trouble seeing the words at that fairly slow speed.

Now we are going to go up to Speed 200.

This time I want you to move your eyes across the lines of text and pause at the punctuation points for the sound to catch up. In other words go a little faster than the sound, then pause at the punctuation points for the sound to catch up.

3B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 200.

4. Section Four

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:56:55 -0500

4A. Notice that the spoken sound was right behind your inner voice. Actually, the sound corrected anything you got wrong, or didn’t see correctly as you read. Notice how you can now start to concentrate on the meaning as you read, rather than the process of reading.

Try to read by the whole punctuation interval, that is, all the text until the punctuation point and then pause. At each pause try to think about all the words you just read in that interval of text. Make sure you understand that group of words as a segment of meaning.

4B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 200.

5. Section Five

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:55:05 -0500

5A. Next we are going to start to read at speed 250.

This time, pause just slightly also on the longer words. These are the words five letters or longer. Do not pause at all on the words that are one, two, three or four letters long. Also, pause at the punctuation marks and wait for the sound to catch up.

In other words, do not try to look at every word as you hear the sound. Just pause on the longer words and at the punctuation points and wait for the sound to catch up.

Notice that if you do this, you have no trouble keeping ahead of the sound.

You will see that if you just pause on the longer words, you will automatically see the shorter words of one, two, three and four letters. You will see these words with your peripheral vision.

5B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 250.

6. Section Six

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:54:11 -0500

6A. Did you experience reading the shorter words without actually stopping on them, and seeing them with your peripheral vision? You should be able to do this now.

Don’t worry about checking the exact count of a word. After a little practice, you will get the feeling of the approximate minimum distance of five letters (i.e., the minimum length of a word to pause briefly on).

Secondly, if there is no longer word for some distance, it is just fine to pause briefly on a shorter word. The rule of thumb is that essentially every two inches there should be something to briefly pause on, or a punctuation point.

Please note: the training you did with “New Skills” taught you how to see short words with your peripheral vision.

The secret discovery behind this earlier training is that there is essentially no difference in seeing these words at very short exposure and seeing them with your peripheral vision. After you practiced with the additional free silent reading movies on our site, you actually got a lot of practice in seeing words with your peripheral vision, as you learned to see them with shorter and shorter exposure.

This training with “New Skills” also taught you how to hear an inner voice and that you did not need to make regressions to see the words.

Please note that if you pause briefly just on the longer words, you will see the shorter words both on the left of a longer word and on the right of that word. You actually see the little words more than once as you go across the line, pausing only on the longer words and at the punctuation points.

You actually hear these shorter words with your inner voice, even if you do not stop to see them individually.

Practice this for another minute at speed 250. Try to make sure you are hearing an inner voice as you go along and that each longer word makes sense in the context of the shorter words which accompany the longer word, even though you did not stop on these shorter words.

6B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 250.

7. Section Seven

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:53:14 -0500

7A. Please also note that pausing on the longer words and at the punctuation points keeps the proportionality of presentation in speech. In actual spoken speech, it takes longer to say the longer words, and there are pauses at the punctuation points.

Maintaining this proportionality to speech greatly helps your comprehension. This is especially true when you start to read much faster than you can speak.

Practice this again at speed 250 for another minute. Make sure you let go of the need to see each word separately.

7B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 250.

8. Section Eight

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:52:17 -0500

8A. Now you can understand why you are reading faster. If you do not stop on words that are one, two, three, or four letters long then you are automatically reading twice to three times as fast, depending on how the text is written.

You should also start to experience your comprehension increasing. Why is this? Our language is written with little words directing to and introducing longer object words. These longer words are the objects of prepositional phrases, adverbial phrases and transitive verbs. They are often the last word before a punctuation mark, especially including the period at the end of a sentence.

As you start to read as directed just above, you begin to focus on the key words and their relationship to each other. The key words in the sentence should begin to pop out at you as you read. Making sense of a few key words is much easier than trying to do this with every word in the sentence.

Notice the presence of sound right behind your inner voice, instantly correcting your inner voice if you have gotten anything wrong or missed something. With the presence of this high-speed voice, you can concentrate on the key words and making sense of the relationship of these key words to one another. With confidence you can develop your skill.

Pretty soon you will be able to read without the voice.

This time we will keep the same speed. However, this time I want you to be aware of the length of the punctuation interval. Try to see the beginning and end of the interval, and the whole length of the interval, when your eyes are stopped. You do not have to see all the letters clearly, just the overall length of the interval.

8B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 250.

9. Section Nine

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:51:20 -0500

9A. Ok. Next we are going to raise the speed to 275. At this speed it is quite impossible for many if not most people to move their eyes across the text and stop to see each and every word. As you read at this speed develop your ability to look at the key words and experience how the little words around it, mostly on the left, but also sometimes on the right, provide meaning for the big word you are pausing on. Remember these object words are also at the end of punctuation intervals.

Words that are capitalized should also be considered object words and paused on briefly.

The sound will help you correct any mistakes and read without anxiety. It will also give you practice in seeing what the smaller words look light in peripheral vision on a page of paginated text. Thus, the program is not only building on peripheral vision skills learned in “New Skills”, but also it is teaching you these skills as you read. Do not be afraid to push yourself.

Link up the meanings of the object words as you go through the punctuation interval and tie them in with the last word in the punctuation interval. During the pause time, think about the meaning of the interval.

9B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 275.

10. Section 10

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:50:23 -0500

10A. Please note that you do not get the meaning of most punctuation intervals until you get to the end of them. However, the appropriate way to do this is not to rush through the text, but rather, to pause briefly on the longer words as you move along to the end of the interval.

Now this time as you read, again at speed 275, I want you to not only think about the meaning of each punctuation interval as you come to it, but also about its relationship to the rest of the sentence, and the last word in the sentence.

As you start to do this, you will realize that you can see the end of one punctuation interval and the beginning of the next interval at the same time. This is OK. As you increase in your reading speed, the graphic representation of pause time becomes sufficient for understanding that a thought segment has occurred, and that the there are more than one thought parts to the sentence and that they have a relationship to each other within the sentence.

You can actually start to read ahead of the pause in the voice if you want. You are now ready to do this.

I want you to try to think about the relationship of the punctuation intervals to each other in the sentence. Maybe they are part of a list. Maybe the first interval is a qualifying condition, or in apposition, or explaining the time or circumstance for the rest of the sentence. Maybe it is an exception condition. There are lots of possibilities, but these same relationships keep coming up over and over. Once you start to think about the relationship involved, your comprehension will increase dramatically. You are now thinking about the relationship of thoughts.

10B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 275.

11. Section 11

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:49:26 -0500

11A. Now I want you to focus on something else. As you read this time, I want you to try to be cognizant of the whole page of text on the screen as one picture. Try to concatenate each segment within the framework of the whole picture.

It will help if you think of looking at a wall in your room. You see the whole wall as one picture, but you actually move around and look carefully at different key points in this picture for sharp focus, while all the time keeping the whole wall as one entity. The best way to do this is when you stop moving your eyes and have focused on one key item.

As you read this way, you are actually reviewing what you have just read. You are also getting a preview of where you may next be stopping.

We will now read at speed 300. As you read at this speed try to see both sides of each punctuation interval, as you focus on the last word in the interval. Try to see this juncture point as a thought break, with a relationship to what went before and after.

The more you start to do this, the faster you will be able to have the sound go. Alternatively, that is stated differently, the faster you set the sound, the more you will be prompted to read this way.

As you read this way, the page of text starts to look like separate blocks, blocks of text separated by punctuation marks and spaces after each mark.

Each sentence, paragraph and page of text becomes a road map with a clear relationship between thoughts, all laid out in front of you, to help you with your passage.

Actually, the beginning of the next interval is often what puts the previous interval in perspective.

Practice now at speed 300. Note: Please feel free to re-read each of these sections a few times at the speeds indicated.

11B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 300.

12. Section 12

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:48:29 -0500

12A. Now we are going to increase the speed a little bit at a time. All the same principles apply. Hopefully, what you will begin to notice is that the faster the concepts come in, the easier it is to understand them. That is, up to a point.

You know you can stop the presentation at any point to re-read a section, take notes (without typing) or look up a word.

As the voice speeds up it may take a minute or two for you to adjust your hearing to the faster speech. Just a few minutes are all you should need to make this adjustment. Actually, the pitch does not go up as the speed of the voice increases. This is a major advance over you trying to talk fast.

12B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 325.

13. Section 13

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:47:32 -0500

13A. Notice how by the time you get to the end of the blue highlight color, you are ready to read the next sentence.

If you want to read faster than the blue highlight, or it is putting you to sleep, you can eliminate seeing the highlight altogether. This is very easy to do. Just go to System Preferences and then Appearance and change the highlight color to “other” and make the shade almost white. Then the highlight color will be the color of the background. In other words, you won’t see anything. You can save this color or revert back to blue or some other color when you are done.

Without the highlight color, you can read as fast as you want, getting as much ahead of the sound as you wish. However, it is best to advance the sound speed so that it keeps up with you, with you being just ahead of it. Set the voice speed for what works best for you.

13B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 350.

14. Section 14

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:46:34 -0500

14A. You may find that you do much better if you have each sentence repeated once as you go along. This is very helpful for heavy philosophy. To do this, just check the box that says “2x”. Remove the check when you want to stop this function. When you hear the sentence repeated, you should try to answer how it will end before you actually hear the sentence end the second time. This will give you an on-line review as you proceed. You don’t have to go back to the beginning and re-read everything.

14B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 375.

15. Section 15

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:45:37 -0500

15A. You may also feel that you do much better if you reverse the color of the text and the color of the background, so the text is white and the background is black. This feature greatly reduces glare. This feature can be toggled on and off by pressing a simple keystroke.

Try reading text for one minute at a faster speed, but with reversed text.

As you continue to improve you can keep increasing the voice speed up to number 450.

15B. READ THE CALL OF THE WILD FOR ONE MINUTE AT SPEED 400.

16. Section: Conclusion

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:44:39 -0500

Here are six interesting points about this reading program.

1. MULTIMEDIA APPROACH. The underlying discovery behind this way to read is that neither high-speed voice by itself, nor high-speed text presentation by itself will work for most people to improve either their reading speed or their comprehension. However, if you combine high-speed voice with high-speed text presentation that is carefully correlated by sentence, you can quickly read and comprehend at good speed, and quickly learn how to go much faster. You can almost immediately use this technique for anybody in middle school, high school or college to read any textbook, novel or other literature very well. A separate part of the software helps people with basic decoding, automaticity and fluency.

2. NON-INTUITIVE PRINCIPLES. The second key discovery here is that in order to do this, you have to learn a few principles that are not intuitive.

3. PRAGMATISM. The third principle is that you have to realize that you are in charge of the controls, and that you need to set the controls for what works for you, realizing that you will need to change the settings as your circumstances change. Behind this whole reading approach is a philosophy of pragmatic realization, which states that with the help of a coach and some basic instruction of concepts that are not self-evident, you can make pragmatic evaluation of what is in your own best interest and set aside old habits in favor of what clearly works better. What works to improve a student’s reading skill is not a teacher-knows-best attitude, but a coach and self-discovery approach for self-empowerment.

4. WRITING IMPROVEMENT. The fourth key discovery is that a basic reading program can also act to greatly improve writing, and as one reads. One can take notes without typing, or type notes and inspiration as one reads, with the book and pages held hands-free. Students can create word-lists and definitions without typing. Students can edit their papers with state-of-the-art audio technique. Students can also review their notes and course textbooks at very fast speed, seeing and hearing every word.

1. READING IMPROVEMENT. The fifth key discovery is that as you read this way you will quickly overcome a number of problems simultaneously, and with just this one program. This program will help you if you twist up letters and words. Furthermore, you will quickly start to process text at the speed your brain works; you will not get distracted. You will also see text clearly. This same single reading program can be used for a wide range of courses and a lifetime of reading. Furthermore, you will hear text spoken as it is presented, so your English pronunciation will quickly improve. If you are just an average reader, you will quickly learn how to overcome sub-vocalization and lip reading and begin to hear an inner voice and turn descriptive text into pictures and movies. Most importantly, anxiety disappears as you instantly start to read at or above grade level with enjoyment, speed and accomplishment. This means that one program is ideal for a large number of users to use for their assigned reading.

1. SHARING KNOWLEDGE. The clarity of knowledge acquired, the degree of instant empowerment and the sheer joy of this process of reading causes readers to want to share what they have just learned. Often this results in extensive writing in a journal or note section. Students also start talking with their teachers and/or other students.