Bilingual Brains – Rapid Readers

May 21, 2013  

Have you heard of neuroplasticity? It’s a feature of our brains that allows the creation of new nerve cells and new connections. This means that when you exercise your brain by focusing on learning and memorizing new information, you’re building up your mental muscles, but there’s also a physical effect. A research study done recently at Northwestern University showed that these physical effects were very evident when people learned a second language. According to the researchers, being bilingual provides many advantages other than the ability to communicate better with more people.

For example, when the researchers measured nerve activity in the brains of bilingual and monolingual test subjects, they found that people who were bilingual were better able to focus on conversations even in very noisy surroundings. If you’re able to focus and ignore distractions, you’ll be able to speed read in any situation. If you can’t eliminate distractions from your environment, it’s harder to focus. Being bilingual gives you an internal focus that helps shield you from outside noise. That’s something that will be very useful for students trying to study for examinations in a crowded dormitory, or someone who’s trying to go over their reports while riding on a noisy commuter train.

You can combine speed reading practice with language learning by reading books in a second language. That way you’ll get better at the second language while making good reading habits automatic. The better you can read, the more quickly you’ll become fluent in that second language – and your bilingual brain will repay you by making you a better and more focused speed reader.

Reference: Krizman, J., Marian, V., Shook, A., Skoe, E., Kraus, N. Subcortical encoding of sound is enhanced in bilinguals and relates to executive function advantages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), April 2012.

Believe In Your Brain, And Speed Up Your Reading

May 14, 2013  

One of the reasons that people read slowly is because they’re afraid they’ll miss something in the text if they go too fast. Unfortunately, while slow and careful reading can be essential when you’re reviewing a contract before signing it, for example, or making sure that you’re following the doctor’s prescription for new medication, most of the time you can trust your brain to be absorbing and processing information just as fast as your eyes can move, even if you’re not conscious of the whole process. Speed reading means not reading word by word, but rather getting groups of words in your visual field with each fixation, and then moving quickly to the next group. Your brain is a powerful tool that takes large chunks of information and automatically handles it correctly, and all you need is the confidence to trust your brain to do what it was designed to do so well.

Don’t believe us? Then read through this next paragraph, and you just might change your mind.

7H15 M3554G3 53RV35 7O PR0V3
H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5!
1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5!
1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG 17 WA5 H4RD BU7
N0W, 0N 7H15 LIN3 Y0UR M1ND 1S
R34D1NG 17 4U70M471C4LLY
W17H 0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17,
B3 PROUD U C4N R34D 7H15.

Did you see how quickly your brain adapted to the new notation? If your brain can automatically deal with that non-standard mix of letters and numbers, don’t you think it can easily handle standard English while you’re reading?

Here’s another quick proof that you can relax and let your eyes take in words quickly, while trusting your brain to interpret them for you.

Can you raed this? The phaonmneal
pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, is taht it dseno’t mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are,
the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer are in the
rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it
whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig, ins’t it?

Of course, there are some people with reading difficulties like dyslexia for whom this isn’t necessarily true, and for people who are just learning to read English, both of these paragraphs would be more confusing than enlightening. If you’re learning English as a second language, you need to start out with language studies, rather than speed reading practice. A site like Learn English 232 is perfect for quickly getting up to speed on English language essentials so you can read in English like a native speaker. But if you’ve got a good grasp of the English language and don’t have any obstacles like learning disabilities that might slow down your reading for other reasons, then the only obstacle stopping you from becoming a speed reader … might be you. Trust your brain, relax, and have fun reading!

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May 13, 2013  

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May 9, 2013  

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Reading Into The Future: E-Books vs. Print Books

May 7, 2013  

Papyrus and parchment scrolls replaced words chipped into stone. Later, sheets of paper made from plant fibers (often linen) were bound into hand-written books, and these replaced the scrolls. Printed books on rag- and wood-pulp paper replaced those written by hand, with each page individually stamped in a press, starting in the 15th century, and by the early 1800s steam-powered rotary printing presses were churning out millions of pages a day on cheap paper making newspapers and popular fiction available to more people than ever. Today, while the paper-based print industry is still going strong, there are some problems with this procedure. For example, the raw materials used in making paper are becoming scarce, and a new source besides wood pulp needs to be found. Recycling paper helps conserve the forests, but often adds harmful chemicals to the environment. Synthetic paper materials might be the answer, but anything that’s based on petrochemicals has its own set of problems.

Some people think that the answer is e-books. After all, they don’t use up any physical materials for paper or ink, and once an e-book is created, it’s instantly available to billions of people around the world. That’s definitely true, but we can’t forget the cost of the materials used to create the e-readers and computers that those billions of people are using to access the book, or the electricity used to power those devices. It’s not a simple solution, and much research is going on into ways to find a sustainable method of making information available to as many people as possible, at the lowest possible cost – both in terms of price and of the environment.

For now, it’s obvious that e-books are becoming more popular every day. Recent studies have shown that at least one in five people use electronic devices to do their reading, although most of the people who read e-books also read print books. The convenience and availability of e-books makes e-reader users more likely to be reading at any given time, and people using e-readers generally read more books in a year than others. The only time people seem to consistently prefer print books is when they’re reading to their children, though this might change in the future as the devices improve to be easier for kids to use, with better graphic display. Changes in technology will continue to affect how, and what, people read. The next evolution for books might be as far advanced from our current e-book format as those e-books are from hand-written scrolls!

What format do you prefer: e-books or print books? Why?

Free Speed Reading E-Books

May 3, 2013  

If you’ve been using the 7 Speed Reading system for learning to speed read, you already know that the software gives you access to hundreds of free e-books on many topics, which you can use to practice your speed reading exercises. Using a variety of texts while you do these exercises is important for three reasons. First, you’ll get used to seeing many different styles of writing and new vocabulary words, which will make you a better reader overall. Second, you won’t get bored reading the same text over and over again as you practice, so you’ll spend more time working on your speed reading techniques, and will improve more quickly. The third reason to use a range of texts to practice reading skills is that you’ll absorb the information in those texts, and expand your knowledge on many different topics. That’s a great time-saving benefit to this technique – not only will you become a faster reader, you’ll also find that you’re a more informed one!

Using the now-global access to e-books, especially free ones, lets you pick from any category of text while still focusing on learning to speed read. There’s another advantage to e-books, and that’s the ability to adjust font size and margin width. This makes it easier to read, and also allows you to work on some specific speed reading techniques like chunking. Look for free e-books through online book stores, or your library. If you don’t have a separate e-book reader like a Kindle, you can usually find a free app to download to your laptop or PC so that you can access the e-books directly.

Why not choose some books about speed reading and learning to read, and use them in your daily practice? That way you’ll be learning about the best speed reading strategies, and putting them directly into use as you read. Here are five free e-books on different topics related to reading that you’ll find both interesting and useful:

How to Read Faster and Recall More by Gordon Wainwright

Rapid Reading by Ruth McCorkle

Methods Manual For Improving Your Eye Movements In Reading by Clement Sievers

The Lost Art of Reading by Gerald Stanley Lee

Books In My Life by Robert Downs

Reading Is Important For Children, Says President Obama

May 3, 2013  

There’s a tradition at the White House in Washington, D.C., of having an Easter Egg Roll every year. This year, President Obama added a new tradition, of reading to a group of young children who had come to the White House for the fun activities. He read the book “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” to them – and with them – and talked about reading.

“Because reading is important. If you know how to read then the whole world opens up to you. So I want everybody to read hard, okay? Read as many books as you can. All right? So then someday you can be up here reading to other kids.”

Watch the whole video here, provided by www.whitehouse.gov

Reading is very important for children and adults. Many studies have been done on the link between reading and school success, and how that even impacts a person’s later career and income levels. When parents and guardians read to children, and then read books with them as the child learns to read on their own, they’re boosting vocabulary development, reading fluency, and an interest in learning and discovery. If you’re a parent, try to make time every day to encourage your child to read. The more they read, the better they’ll get at that skill, and soon they’ll be speed reading their way even through the hardest school books.

One great way to help all children learn to read is to volunteer to work with those who don’t have that family support. Many local libraries, youth centers, and social services organizations have programs that bring adult readers together with children who want to learn to read. If you have time, you might consider sharing your love of reading with those children – it will give them the reading strength they need to go on to succeed at school. Who knows, one day one of those children might become President themselves!

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May 3, 2013  

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Don’t Know What To Read? Ask A Librarian

April 26, 2013  

Whether you’re looking for something to read for fun, or you have a specific topic you need to research, sometimes finding the right book is difficult. You can walk into a bookstore and easily be overwhelmed by the choices available, and while the clerk might know where to find books on a specific topic, they probably won’t know which books will help you most. Going into a virtual bookstore just means that you have a “virtual clerk” that will help you find things using keywords, but still there are many choices, and not much information to help you narrow those choices down to one or two.

When you walk into a library, you might think that your problems choosing a book are even worse, because most libraries have many more books than even the biggest bookstore. However, libraries have a critical resource that bookstores don’t: the librarians. These people know and love books, and can do much more than just show you the section where you can find, for example, texts on music of 19th-century Europe. Librarians follow trade journals and book reviews, and they’ll know the best choices for fiction as well as nonfiction on a variety of topics. What’s more, they’ll be able to guide you in your own study projects by helping you locate the resources you need.

Libraries have always been the first place to go for people who want to learn. When you’re in school, teachers decide what you’re going to learn, and direct you through the process. But when you’re done with school, that doesn’t mean you’re done with learning! Using the library, where you can find information on any topic, means that you can continue a process of lifelong learning. In fact, in the United States this lifelong learning process was planned for, and many libraries trained their staff to better help curious readers. At the New York Public Library, the Office of the Reader’s Advisor once had staff who would meet individually with people who wanted to pursue a particular subject, interview them, and come up with a list of book recommendations designed to help.

Some libraries don’t have the financial resources to provide this individual consultation any more, but to make up for that, there are electronic catalogs that give you access to more books than any one library can hold, and all library staff will be able to help you find things that you need. The next time you’re at a loss and wondering where to find the books you need, ask a librarian!

7 Speed Reading for Mac – Spy Photos

April 20, 2013  

Every day at eReflect, we’re inundated by requests for a Mac version of 7 Speed Reading. And for good reason. Over 20% of our target web visitors are now using Macs and there’s a severe lack of decent speed reading software in the OSX space. To many Mac users, having the world’s most acclaimed speed reading software available on their Mac would be a dream come true. Rest assured, it’s a dream we have been working very hard on…

Over last 12 months, we have been working to create a Mac version of 7 Speed Reading. And today, we’re excited to announce that we’re going to “leak” some spy photos of the software. Below, you can see the full version of 7 Speed Reading running like a dream on Marc’s MacBook Air.

Now for the question on everyone’s lips: when will it be released? We can’t give a definite date just yet, but it will almost certainly be before the end of June. The software is essentially finished. But we need to take it through a rigorous process of testing and quality assurance. We are working on this now (in fact we have contracted four different companies to test the software, in addition to putting three of our own software testers on the job).

Thanks for all the requests and support from the Mac people – we can’t wait to serve you!!!