One undoubted charm of book reading is the way it lets us lose ourselves in the story. Storybook heroes allow us to identify with them; they inspire us to fight our own battles and give us insights on how to cope with and survive in a world we hardly can make sense of at the age of 8 or 9 .

However, a more careful look at children’s literature reveals the ways it which it is often too narrow in scope. Not all children can identify with a white, middle-class boy. There are millions of children out there who belong to a different gender, or socioeconomic status, or cultural heritage and ethnicity. So what sorts of heroes do these children relate and connect to?

Why care about book diversity?

Diverse reading serves an important and two-fold purpose. It allows people of different cultural backgrounds to find a mirrored reality in the storyline, and it also allows those unfamiliar with these cultural trajectories to familiarize themselves with – and even empathize with – something completely  unrelated to their own reality. An 8 year old girl from Washington can enjoy reading about a family in Romania; a British boy can find parallels to his own life by reading about girls’ education in Ghana.

Reading books that revolve around realities and people that are not close to our own can contribute to a child’s brain development. A child needs both aspects of literature. Children need to read about their own culture, but also about those cultures they have never heard of. This allows for the development of empathy and respect towards anything that’s different or alien, and it nurtures a more tolerant attitude overall.

The need to belong, and appreciating what’s different

Apart from reading about worlds and realms that are strange, unfamiliar, and intriguing, diverse reading allows children and their parents to engage with literature that mirrors their existence and thus helps them understand themselves and their environment.

Not every child born in the US has parents that speak English and not every child can find similarities in their life and that of a suburban boy attending elite boarding schools in Switzerland.

A child needs the confirmation that their individual reality is not strange, marginal, or looked down upon and condemned. Young readers look for ways in which their personal reality is reflected in a book in order to makes sense of and accept the world around them.

Cultures, no matter how dramatically different they are from ours, each have to be heard from and appreciated. Diverse reading helps ensure that all voices are heard and that every child in the world can find in a book the mirror of their reality as well as a door to understanding and appreciating those different from their own.

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Let go of (almost) everything you knew about reading (as taught in school)

Subvocalization

Sounding out the words you read in your mind and mouth slows your reading pace significantly. By eliminating the act of subvocalization in easy to medium level texts you pick up the pace of reading without sacrificing comprehension. You see, your mind can read faster than your mouth can sound out the words. By eliminating subvocalization you essentially unleash your reading speed potential.

The same goes for reading out loud. This can be a reading strategy that facilitates comprehension – especially when you first learn to read. But if you alread know how to read, it no longer serves you.

Sharpened eye movement

With eye movement being a fundamental aspect of speed reading, it only makes sense to try to improve eye movement and strength. You can achieve this through eye fixation exercises where you train your eye to read more chunks of words at a time, rather than one word after the other.

This “one word at a time” approach is a habit adopted in your primary school years and when you were first introduced to reading. You probably remember being called upon to read word by word, often out loud. But by the time you finished the sentence you had to reread the whole thing to remember what was at the beginning!

Many people have an off-center  or anomalous reading rhythm too. Speed reading exercises help you achieve a smoother, more balanced eye movement as you read, making the process faster.

Don’t read it again. Ever.

Eliminate regression with increased focus. When we read we often get distracted so we actually read the words without extracting any meaning from them. This forces us to reread so we can understand what we read (again).

This speed-reading-sabotaging habit is called regression. It’s the result of losing your place on the screen or paper, or of not being mindful of the reading process, or of distracting yourself with other tasks or thoughts and having to go over your text all over again.

Learning to speed read by eliminating one bad habit at a time

Don’t read when you’re tired or distracted. If need be take a five-minute break to unwind and focus.

Reading when you’re tired is counterproductive, especially if it’s for research or studying. You will often have slow recognition and response to what you’re reading, find it hard to understand what’s being said and as a result, have to re-read the whole thing.

Many people are slowed down by anxiety that they won’t be able to comprehend a difficult text. You’ll be surprised how much your attitude toward a text can affect your comprehension of it. Be more confident and relaxed when it’s time to read.  Have instrumental music playing in the background or take a brisk walk to clear your head beforehand.

Now, over to you for the comments. What reading habit slows your reading down? How have you tried getting rid of this habit?

Speed reading is impossible without fixing bad reading habits first

Regression, limited fixation, and vocalization are just three of the many bad reading habits that prevent many people from speed reading. Or at least doing so at their full capacity. But please do not blame your primary school teacher. It’s not their fault.

However, you can change these reading habits now. Learn to get rid of them and make room for speed reading habits that will boost your reading speed.

About 30% of your reading time is spend on rereading

Seems like an awful lot of time wasted, doesn’t it? Regression and backtracking are the two main reasons you’re not reading as fast as you could.

Lack of focus, distractions, and the move from paper reading to digital reading all have a role to play in how much you backtrack when reading.

You can eliminate regression, the act of re-reading material either unconsciously or consciously, by making it impossible to do so. Let me explain. Use a pointer to force your eyes to only read what’s in front of you. A pen or cursor can do the trick.

If you’re reading a book or newspaper try using a blank sheet of paper or another book to cover every line you just read. This will force you to be more focused because  you know that you cannot go back to re-read!

Reading fast is all about improving comprehension

Reading at 900 or 1000 wpm is useless if you cannot retain any information. Speed reading is all about your goals, but your two goals should be speed and comprehension working together.

To speed read is not to have your eyes scan content as fast as you can. It’s about being a selective reader where you read slowly when an important argument is made, you start skimming through pieces that are redundant or supplementary, and overall you read at a pace that’s comfortable enough to facilitate comprehension yet fast enough to be time-efficient.

Put simply, speed reading ultimately boils down to being a discerning, critical reader.

Speed reading is an essential skill for today’s professionals

Reading faster is more than saving a few hours every week. It’s about having the opportunity to learn new skills and gather new knowledge. In other words, it’s about staying a step ahead of your competitors and colleagues.

Being a speed reader opens up a whole new world for you, from better career prospects to increased influence and expertise in your company and at a wider community level. Speed reading is your opportunity to move ahead and to stand out.

Educator and entrepreneur Evelyn Wood created the first speed reading course, named Reading Dynamics. That was in 1959. A lot has changed since and speed reading courses have been fine-tuned and optimized, now offering a comprehensive speed reading learning experience with tangible yet impressive results.  7 Speed Reading, for instance, can help you read three times your current speed through the power of technology, progress tracking, and step-by-step video tutorials.

Any bit of help matters

Speed reading is a complex cognitive process. It requires a combination of alertness and mental focus and of course learnable skills like using your peripheral vision to expand your eye fixation, eliminating regression, and reducing vocalization to a minimum.

While it is possible to learn to speed read in a self-directed manner, using a speed reading app can offer you the right tools and techniques to speed read in less time and with less practice.

7 Speed Reading is designed to be the world’s most powerful speed reading training program. If you want to learn speed reading, 7 Speed Reading is the best option.

Speed reading is 99% practice

To speed read you need to eliminate subvocalization, or when you hear and shape words with your mouth and in your head. That’s a fact. And that’s the first step to mastering speed reading. There are several simple techniques that help you fight this habit, but only practice will get rid of it entirely.

You’ve been reading in a certain way because that’s what you were taught to do in school. Now you need to unlearn those old methods and acquire new speed-reading habits! And it’s only through consistent practice you’re going to make it happen.

Amp up your speed reading gradually

In other words, start small. You cannot expect to speed read a medical textbook after a few hours of practicing subvocalization elimination and cluster reading. You need to start small, and practice with books or text that is at your current reading level to help you get in the speed reading mode. It will be easier to concentrate and implement everything you learn when the content is with you and not against you.

It’s also important to be relaxed when you learn to speed read, and starting off with easy stuff does help. You’ll know when you’re ready to move on to more difficult texts.

You’re not on your own

Don’t be that person who sabotages their own learning process because you don’t know how to find help when you need it. If there are tricks and hacks to help you speed read, please use them.

Use a ruler, or a pen, or a card to guide your eyes at the desired speed to the next cluster of words.

This simple device can help you speed up your reading without exerting too much effort. By changing the circumstances, you’re forcing yourself to adapt to the new speed-optimized reality of reading.

Remember, speed reading is all about making smart choices. These three best practices will help you speed read, and read smarter, not harder!

7 Speed Reading is designed to be the world’s most powerful speed reading training program.

You can improve your reading speed and get up to 3 times faster, simply by letting go of reading habits you learned in primary school and by adopting skills that are more … 21st century compatible, shall we say. Let’s dig in!

Read chunks of words, not word after word

At school you learned to read in a linear manner. Spell out every sound, syllable, and word before moving on to the next. It’s a great practice for children who are just starting to learn to read, but it’s not helpful when you want to read at 500 or 600 words per minute.

When we read we fixate our eyes on a particular area in front of us. To read faster you need to have the fewest number of fixation points per line as possible in order to read faster through each line. This is reading in saccades, jumping from one fixation point to the next in little bursts.

Each fixation act lasts as little as 0.25 of a second, so imagine how much improvement you will achieve by having only one or two fixation points per line! This will greatly improve your words-per-minute rate.

To achieve this you have to learn to use your peripheral vision when reading. Instead of fixating on a single word, focus your eyes in the blank space between two words so that you must read both the word on the left side of the space and on the right side at the same time.

After some time you’ll be able to read more than two words at once using your peripheral vision and by expanding your fixation area.

The only way is forward

Fixation is not the only problem when it comes to speed reading mastery. You also need to eliminate regression.

This is another leftover habit from when you were young and just starting out to read. You would spell out a word, and then instantly read the whole thing to get what you’re reading.

This habit as an adult, however, will completely ruin your speed reading potential. If you constantly back-skip to reread words and whole sentences because you weren’t paying attention, you’re spending too much time. It is estimated that about one third of your reading time is spent rereading stuff  you just read either because you consciously didn’t get it the first time, or because it is something your brain is still trying to process in the old letter-by-letter method.

Either way, you need to reduce regression to a minimum in order to read more in less time. What you can do:

– Prevent yourself from re-reading a phrase of word – unless of course you absolutely have to!

– Use a pointer to keep your reading speed at a high level. Using your index finger, your cursor, or a pen will force your eyes to read faster. Of course, to achieve this you first need to increase your focus and alertness so that every phrase you read is understood and you can move on to the next without backtracking.

By eliminating these two bad habits of regression and vocalization you will be able to read at as much as three times your current reading rate. Remember, speed reading takes practice and the more you practice the faster you will read!

7 Speed Reading is designed to be the world’s most powerful speed reading training program. If you want to learn speed reading, 7 Speed Reading is the best option.

Books are often broadly classified as either fiction or non-fiction. In the former category you find books such as novels. Non-fiction is everything else – broadly speeking, non-fiction is not a made-up story, but is based on true facts. “Self-help” is a popular non-fiction genre and so are philosophy, science, and biographies.

What books should I read to be smarter?

This is a tough question and the answer is hotly debated. Some people see no difference between genres when it comes to the benefits of reading. If it’s a magnificently well-written book, you will benefit from it whether its a made-up story or a fact-based narrative, they say.

That being said, there are some genres that are traditionally considered superior to others when it comes to the return on the time investment you make by reading.

Science – Popular Science

This genre helps you understand new or past concepts and developments in the fields of science and then make use of them in any way that’s applicable to your life or work.

Whether you’re reading a science book on biochemistry, the environment, or human genetics, the insights you get not only enrich your knowledge but stimulate your curiosity to learn more of this ever-changing, fast-evolving field, and of the world around you.

Science lets you understand and marvel at the natural world and realize your own capacity, origin, and ultimate destiny.
Philosophy and Poetry

These are two completely different genres, but their value is equally tremendous. Discovering the truths stated by great philosophers of the world helps you understand your fellow humans and yourself a little better, and gives you powerful tools you can use in your daily life. From better analytic thinking to a critical approach to problem-solving, philosophy can help you elevate your mind and spirit.

Poetry, the other side of this coin, offers both the pleasure in reading and the thought-provoking content. Poetry encourages you to think, question and evolve.

Poetry is far more than love sonnets (or greeting cards). Poetry is the culmination of human intelligence and creativity. Poetry combines the wonder of language and the power of words with questions, teachings, and imagery no other genre can evoke.

Whether it teaches you something or just makes you smile, philosophy and poetry will sharpen your mind and speak directly to your soul.

History and Biographies

The greatest achievements of the greatest men and women are described in valuable resources we all have access to. They’re called history books. Whether you pick up a biography of a famous person or about the era in which they lived, you will have in the most condensed form the wisdom and knowledge of people, cultures, and civilizations around the world.

History books let you understand what others before you did right, and what they did wrong. Read about what they did that worked well, and you can use that wisdom and power to navigate your own life. If you’re in a place to inspire positive action in people and communities, reading history books is an absolute must. It will not only make you smarter, it also makes you more astute in how you perceive the world and its workings.

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We love information. We learn through information sources, we make a living through them, and we have fun with them. You could say we’re information hunter-gatherers, and we’ve been so all along. It’s just that today, the need to keep up with the endless stream of new information is more urgent than ever.

Naturally, we want to consume information faster, and that’s why we’re trying reading hacks and looking for new ways of reading in order to keep up with the pace. It’s something that’s been going on for years.

The US Air Force tachistoscope

The tachistoscope, a device used in the American Air Force, is considered the first instance of how people tried to make their brains get used to faster processing times for information. By featuring and then withdrawing an image quickly, pilots would learn to identify the enemy mid air and respond swiftly and appropriately.

It wasn’t until the 1920’s that scientists and psychologists began to believe that the human brain reads in words, not in letters. Scientists played around with the idea of how someone can read words or phrases not letter by letter but just by looking at the word or phrase as a single, coherent block of information. They discovered that the human brain can process information after only viewing it for 2 milliseconds.

Reading through a meta guide

The more we learned about reading and the human brain, the more interesting speed reading became. In the 50’s Evelyn Wood, who studied fast readers, discovered that using a finger or hand to guide and pace the reading rhythm helps a person read faster. In fact, the term “speed reading” is attributed to Evelyn Wood and her efforts to promote speed reading to the public. She went on to teach her speed reading technique through seminars throughout the US.

From then on, speed reading has constantly been enriched with even more methods on how to improve speed reading skills through new experiments and research.

Apart from using a hand, finger or ruler to pace reading, the elimination of subvocalization is one of the fundamental techniques used when teaching speed reading.

Spreeder, which is a top free speed reading app, does exactly that. It helps you read at a pace where subvocalization is not possible or allowed. The pace set by the app forces your brain to ‘silently’ read the word appearing on the screen rather than reading it out loud in your head. The more you train your brain to read this way, the more comfortable you become reading at a faster pace.

Speed Reading in 2016

As a skill, speed reading is essential for many professionals. Gathering information has never been more essential to our careers, and even our social lives. In both cases keeping up with trends and developments is important to our status and well-being.

Learning to speed read will help you be more efficient at accumulating valuable knowledge, help you save time, and even contribute towards your ability to make more money through the skills, knowledge, and insight you acquire through speed reading.

Skim and scanning, pacing, eliminating subvocalization and regression, visually reading chunks of words at a time – there’s so much to learn about speed reading. Open the door to the exciting world of speed reading, and you’ll never look back again!

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eReflect, the Educational Technology company behind 7 Speed Reading software and Spreeder.com, announce a new desktop app to be launched in 2016 along with a highly anticipated iPad app and a speed ebook reader.

7 Speed Reading is undergoing a major revamp for its 2016 version, eReflect announces. 7 Speed Reading seeks to better align its brand with the new company goals and to better serve its existing and new customers. Apart from an upcoming name change, the 7 Speed Reading desktop app and cloud software will now incorporate highly anticipated new features, including a brand new iPad app for speed reading.

Although the name is yet to be revealed, 7 Speed Reading will get a new brand that will better reflect the software’s user-friendly, interactive, and efficient design in teaching people how to speed read. 7 Speed Reading is already a best-selling software product, and eReflect is confident that the version to be released in 2016 in parallel with the revamped new product name will provide a smooth transition for existing clients.

The new, rebranded software will offer course materials designed and brought together by top speed reading experts and authors. There will be an exclusive speed e-book reader for helping users read digital content faster, and also a forthcoming iPad app for Apple users that will allow them to save time and learn new things through their iPads whether at home or on the go.

Through its promising rebranding and feature expansion 7 Speed Reading aspires to be the go-to speed reading solution for students, professionals, and anyone who values saving time and benefiting from the amazing the power of knowledge that can be gained through reading.

Among its planned feature upgrades, eReflect anticipates that the new Web browser plugins and extensions for letting users add online content into their Spreeder library will be popular with users of all ages. There will also be WordPress and website plugins for website managers and owners who want to offer a speed reading version of their online content.

Thanks to 7 Speed Reading, many people around the world have already managed to save time and do better at work and school, by gaining new knowledge faster and handling workload and homework more efficiently. The speed reading program gives people the ability to read faster, improve their memory, and increase reading comprehension.

7 Speed Reading helps users improve their reading speed by as much as three times their current rate, saving them hundreds of reading hours every year. Through expert-designed activities and games, users can discard old reading habits that hinder comprehension and slow down reading pace as well as adopt new reading habits that help them increase their focus, memory, and ability to speed read. 7 Speed reading focuses on fixation expansion, full brain utilization, eye muscle fitness, and improvement of the overall reading comprehension rate.

With over 20,470 ebooks to use when practicing speed reading, 7 Speed Reading provides the most comprehensive ebook library available. People from all walks of life and professions will find relevant and useful content to use to learan to speed read. Users also have the ability to import their own purchased books and documents to read in the integrated speed e-reader.

In 2015, 7 Speed Reading became cloud based, allowing users to practice anywhere, anytime, and on any device. User profiles and training progress are synced across devices and downloading on several different computers and other devices is no longer necessary. The cloud-based 7 Speed Reading is available exclusively online through individual logins. 7 Speed Reading offers up to five personal profiles with a single license, making it suitable for the entire family and small businesses.

Through its adaptive learning technology 7 Speed Reading offers a personalized learning experience based on the learning goals and objectives of each user. The program tracks and reports on every training activity and game and offers learning recommendations to help users achieve their speed reading milestones.

Its user-friendly and intuitive interface make it easy for new users to find their way around the games, activities, lessons and other functions. The program offers visual, easy-to-understand reporting on practice and results, and enables Facebook sharing when the user completes an activity. A recent and highly praised feature in 7 Speed Reading has been its point-collecting functionality, in which users earn points as they practice their speed reading skills.

The highly popular 7 Speed Reading offers a 100% money back guarantee along with an extra $50 for any user who does not manage to improve their speed reading skill.

eReflect has said that the official announcement of the 7 Speed Reading relaunch and feature expansion will take place in the next few weeks. For more information on the upcoming changes and updates, eReflect welcomes any individual or press inquiries.  

UPDATE:

*On January 2016, Speed Reading App – Spreeder Pro is already up for grab online.

* On February 2016, Speed Reading iPad version for Spreeder Pro is already available in iTunes and Apple Store.

The results were astonishing.

You’re lucky. Fiction is getting better.

The FlipSnack study reveals that over the years, book readers rate and review the books they read at consistently higher levels. The researchers looked into Amazon user reviews, taking into consideration book length and discovered that the number of books receiving above average reviews has grown. More specifically, for 2014, the average book rating was 4.1, with 5 being the best.

Books are getting thicker too.

Some good news for bibliophiles who want to read more! Over the course of the last fifteen years, novels have gotten longer. In 2000 the average book length was about 340 pages. In 2007 this count went up to 400, and by 2013 it had jumped to 450 pages long.

What could explain the fact that books are getting better and thicker?

James Finlayson from Vervesearch, the company that carried out the study on behalf of FlipSnack, told The Guardian that one way they could explain this trend is the popularity of ebooks which enable users to choose longer reads without having to worry about the book’s weight.

In other words, people are no longer intimidated by longer books simply due to their physical size, daunting thickness, or inconvenient weight. Whether you are downloading a 250-page novel or a 800-page saga to your tablet or ereader, you won’t notice any difference.

The study by Vervesearch on behalf of FlipSnack serves to silence those that proclaimed reading dead. People are not only still reading, they’re reading better and longer novels. The medium is the only thing that changed.

What is your book of choice? Do you like long reads like the “A Brief History of Seven Killings” by Marlon James? Or are you more of a short story reader? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Reading faster is really the only way you can conquer your daily reading assignments and efficiently study for your upcoming quizzes and exams.

Less frustration, more results

Reading is essential. Time is valuable. Being a medical student you already know that you sometimes have the choice between taking the time to read and learn, and having free time but running the risk of failing a test or class. But it doesn’t have to be that way, you know.

By increasing your reading speed rate with strategies that eliminate subvocalization, for instance, you can read more texts in less time that before, and still get all the main points of what you read.

The average person reads about 200 to 300 words per minute. A speed reader can as much as triple that rate without sacrificing comprehension and information retention. Now, imagine reading a whole book in 2 hours instead of 6 hours. It’s a lot more efficient, and in the long run it will help you learn more, achieve more, and enjoy more!

Succeeding as a medical student means effectively handling your stress levels, and with speed reading you can keep them under control. You’ll be able to relax, knowing you can efficiently read text of any length, even if it has been assigned at the last minute.

More knowledge in less time

That’s ultimately our goal in this information-centred society, isn’t it? To keep abreast of all the developments. In the medical field, this is even more important, as technology and new discoveries change treatment options and techniques on an almost daily basis.

That’s one reason why FOMO, or the fear of missing out, doesn’t solely pertain to social events and cultural practices. You know that there’s always someone else in your class who spends all day studying, and studying, and studying, while you’re taking a 1-hour break for some yoga. Even if your body appreciates the break, you might not be getting the full satisfaction out of your yoga session, if all you can do is worry that you shouldn’t be on your mat, but in the library studying your 956-page book on embryology.

By improving your reading speed through simple hacks (such as using your index finger to navigate your eyes to read faster) and learning how to mute that voice in your head that sounds out what you’re reading, you will instantly become more efficient, and that will give you the extra time you need.

As a result of even a few hours of speed reading study, you’ll know how to acquire more knowledge in less time. What this means for your social life … is that you actually get to have one.

Effective strategic learning

No matter how fascinating you find the topic, molecular cell biology is only so much fun. There will be classes and books you will struggle with. They will be uninteresting, written in a very dry, jargon-y way, and will probably make you hate yourself for even thinking about going to med school in the first place.

Speed reading can be a lifesaver. If you always assumed that the only thing it would give you is speed, think again. When you know the tricks, you’ll also be improving your comprehension of what you read. Here’s why: one aspect of speed reading is learning to be selective about what you speed read, and what you don’t.

For instance, going over a chapter on arthritic joints that contains information you’ve read in another book gives you the opportunity to speed read it, and only slow down where new information or new perspectives are presented.

Ultimately, speed reading is about optimizing your reading rate. You need to adapt your reading speed to the demands of, and your familiarity with, what you read.

Be on top of new developments – and your own curriculum

An extra bonus that most people forget about when it comes to speed reading is the ability it gives you to succeed. When you’ve got the extra time and the reading skills to get through all of the latest journal articles in your chosen field, you’ll already be miles ahead of the competition, and a better practitioner in the end. While you’re in school, your success comes in part from your ability to manage your study load in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you – and speed reading does that, too.

Programs like 7 Speed Reading™ help you eliminate bad reading habits and learn strategies to read faster while respecting the time it takes to process and understand new information. Becoming a speed reader isn’t about indiscriminately speed reading everything that comes your way. It’s simply a strategy to learn more in less time, and still have the time to enjoy student life.

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