Sunday
Oct182009
in 
Videos
Videos New Videos Are UP!
Hi Everyone,
The two new videos are up. And I'll be posting some great updates regarding the forthcoming book and information on products for the upcoming store November 2nd.
-Kris Madden
tagged site updates, speed reading, videos
site updates, speed reading, videos 
Reader Comments (18)
hi... i wanted to know whether you could give me a list of links to all your videos ... i also wanted to hear your opinion on the software "SpeedReader-X" ... thanks
All my speed reading videos are in the "Speed Reading" section.
I put in a support ticket with Elite Minds about their "Speed Reader X" program and asking about the research that the program is based on. I'll post a follow-up when I hear back from them. Here's a copy of what I sent:
"I'm always compiling research on the topic of speed reading and on the "How it Works" page it says, "After a major research and testing project, I realized that simplicity was the answer."
Where are the findings of this research project? The documentation? Works Cited? etc.
I couldn't find it on your website or any references to work that was used to develop your speed reading program.
I look forward to your reply. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Kris Madden"
hi again ... thank you for responding to my comment, but the only videos i find in the speed reading section of your website are:
1. Final HD Trailer #3
2. Video on updates
there are no other videos, just articles.... but i remember you saying in your updates video that you would make a video about how to speed read WITHOUT saying "a,e,i,o,u...", "1,2,3..." etc. instead of the actual text. I was really looking forward to checking out how to read without "aeiou..." as i get too distracted while trying to master reading with aeiou ... i really hope i put my point through.
i really appreciate you looking up about speed reader x and writing to them. thank you again. i'm really looking forward to hearing from you again!
Ok, I think I figured it out. Try clicking on the "Speed Reading" link at the top of the page next to "Blog" to see all of the videos. Thank you for pointing that out I'll go back and put in the proper tags so that they can be found both ways later this week.
-Kris
hi (again...!) i am pretty sure you are bored of me. but i can't help but ask the questions that are in my mind. thank you for redirecting me to the top of the page. as i said, i had a question that i wanted to ask you: i have been practicing the "Practice Exercise #1" of "Displacement" from your book for almost 2 days now. since the direction says "take a break and restart if you hear yourself subvocalising", i do just that and i am not being able to rid myself of the habit that is said to be such a hindrance. could you give me some tips to help me get rid of the subvocalisation habit? i have been trying to increase my concentration duration and stuff, but to no avail. please help!
Breaking habits take longer than two days, especially one's that have been practiced for long lengths of time. Remember you're learning a new skill from scratch, it takes time. Think about it as if you'd decided to play the guitar two days ago. You might know a couple of chords and maybe a really easy song depending on how much you practiced in those two days, but you'd still play guitar pretty slow. It's the same with speed reading, you should see an increase abilities the more you practice, in regards your reading speed and comprehension, but it's not going to be a flip of the switch.
I've encountered similar questions from people who feel that because it's "speed" reading, they should be able to pick up the skill quickly. To use the guitar example again, it's like you're whole life you've played slow songs with a few chords and now you want to play neo-classical speed metal. Well, you'll have to learn new techniques, scales, rhythms, patterns, etc. but as you do you'll become a faster guitar player with each practice session.
And if you haven't already, take a look at the FAQ, which also has some common questions for beginners.
-Kris
hi - this is probably the 4th time I am disturbing you ... sorry for that. I was wondering what I must do about the practice exercises... should I go onto the next exercise or should i go on doing exercise 1 until I perfect it (which will take ages, because, as you said, getting rid of subvocalisation will not be easy and won't happen overnight. thanks for all your help, i am really grateful to you...
Hi Anonymous for the 4th time, lol, no worries.
You skipped the introduction, didn't you? Even though it bluntly says, "STOP! Read this introduction!"
Check out the subsection, "One Final Word", in the "Introduction" of "Learn to Speed Read" to find your answer.
-Kris
hi Kris (5th time now! lol). Don't worry, I most certainly did not skip the introduction. Quoting from your text:
"... don't give up when you hit a rough patch ..."
is what you wrote. but in the introduction you did not state whether or not the exercise should be perfected. That was my question. I did not give up or try to skip the exercise ... I did it completely, but I did hit spots where I needed to stop and continue after a while. But I did it.
I know I am reiterating for like the umpteenth time - but thanks for keeping in touch and sorry for bothering you sooooooooooooooooooo much!
hi Kris (again...!)
I wanted to ask you somethings that just popped into my head:
1. When I read, I sub-vocalize "1,2,3...", but some words are inevitably sub-vocalized. Is it possible to completely eliminate sub-vocalization? If yes, it's possible only by practice, right?
2. I am becoming a little uncomfortable reading online. Is it OK if I read any book using the technique given in the exercises specified in your book? Or is your book essential in practising the exercises?
Thanks a lot. I respect your patience with me (seriously. no lol!)
Hi Anonymous,
Exercises do not need to be "perfected". The book is setup with five exercises, one for each day of the week, with the "Performance Reading" sections to be read over the course of the weekend, or in portions throughout the week. With this schedule the book should be completed in six weeks, one week for each section.
Answers to Questions in your second post:
Is it possible to completely eliminate sub-vocalization?
Yes.
If yes, it's possible only by practice, right?
Right.
I am becoming a little uncomfortable reading online.
You can buy the print version of the book on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, or here on the store page, if that helps.
Is it OK if I read any book using the technique given in the exercises specified in your book?
Yes, feel free to.
Is your book essential in practising the exercises?
Some of the exercises later in the book will be difficult to replicate, but chapters 1 and 2 can certainly be practiced while reading other texts.
Sorry i responded late and sorry to disturb you again (I am sure you must have told your editor, even if your editor is yourself, that you were tired of reading and responding to my mail/comments). I read your response and wondered - "How do we completely eliminate sub-vocalization? When we're saying '1,2,3...' also we are sub-vocalizing. So how come we can eliminate sub-vocalization? Also, if we do get rid of sub-vocalization, what do we say/feel in our minds while reading?" Thanks for all your help. I am really grateful to you!
Hi Anonymous,
"How do we completely eliminate sub-vocalization? When we're saying '1,2,3...' also we are sub-vocalizing.
Yes, you are sub-vocalizing, but you're not sub-vocalizing the text, which is different and significant in process of lessening sub-vocalization while reading. Eventually through practicing the other exercises in the book, the reader is weened off of the habit of sub-vocalization through other methods. Read on, you'll see.
What does it feels like to understand the word you read without sub-vocalizing it?
It feels like watching a few seconds of film flash across your mind's eye, while your literal eyes glance at a portion of text. Take for instance the opening of Bleak House by Charles Dickens, a portion of 490 words below (according to Word 2007), gives the reader a description of London using the fog/smoke as a sort of guide through the city. This section is composed of mainly visuals, but also has name's of places associated with those images.
It is common for readers to see the word "London" and picture several versions of their "London" at the same time, which might be a map with its location or a picture of parliament, with the word attached to it like a labeled poster. But words like "smoke" or "fog" or "Chimney-pots" do not need to be voiced, but instead imagined. Like composers who can look at a sheet of music and hear the notes and accompaniment in their head, an efficient reader can see, smell, feel, hear, the words on the page.
And, once again, keep in mind that this is a learned skill and requires time and practice, and while you should see results from the exercises, increased speed and increased comprehension, mastery is another thing altogether that only comes when the "practice" becomes "behavior". In the beginning, when you practice the "1-2-3" or "A-E-I-O-U" exercises, you should the numbers "1", "2", "3", flash across your mind's eye, and then in between those numbers see images of what you imagine "Alice" to look like, and maybe even a few snippets of her actions, at which point you might fall back into focusing on the text rather than numbers and have to restart the exercise. This is great and perfectly normal for the new learner, because those images the reader is seeing is information taken in visually, rather than audition (voicing the word), or audibly (hearing the word voiced). Over time the flashes, become longer and scenes begin to stream together, until the experience of reading is a seamless filmstrip.
Below, I've included the passage from Bleak House for you to try out.
Take care,
Kris Madden
From Bleak House By Charles Dickens
London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.
Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time—as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.
The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.
hi again!
it's been a week since i bothered you, but i'm back it seems. i done with a big chunk of your book (I am on the dishabituation chapter, and i was wondering - in the practice exercises, i am reading with comprehension because im pretty slow. due to that, i end up subvocalising. am i doing the exercises correctly? if not, what am i supposed to do? also, once i am done with the book for the first time, how much (roughly) of an improvement would i make in my reading speed? thanks in advance.
Hi Anonymous,
I was wondering when you were going to pop up again. Is there something else I can call you? Something shorter perhaps?
Answers to your questions:
Am I doing the exercises correctly?
As long as you see a decrease in the amount of sub-vocalization while reading, then you’re on the right track. Try not to think of it in terms of an on/off switch but as line graph. So instead of sub-vocalization=bad / no sub-vocalization=good, view the process in terms of more or less, like, “I sub-vocalized less today, than I did yesterday, I’m getting better at speed reading”. As long as you’re practicing you’re on an upward slope, you may have dips, or regressions, but if you keep practicing you’ll keep getting better. It’s like long-term investment as opposed to day trading.
Once i am done with the book for the first time, how much (roughly) of an improvement would i make in my reading speed?
I preface this with the fact that I have no knowledge of your educational, medical, personal, etc. background. So, shooting in the dark, on average, I see people doubling their speed. Some people start off reading 50-75 words per minute and afterwards they can read 100-150, which is still in the average range of reading, but if English is a second language, or the person is in the sixth grade, this would be a significant leap for them, and would continue to increase over time and practice. Some people finish and they can read faster than I currently have the ability to.
Without knowing anything about you, or even your name, my “rough” estimate is still a blind guess. And so I my best guess would be that you’ll increase your reading speed and comprehension after finishing, but by how much? I don’t know, I would need more information.
hi... i don't know what you could call me that is smaller - Anon maybe, or Anony or Mous (any of them are fine, seriously!). Anyways, I was wondering to what extent I am supposed to do an exercise. See, this is what I'm doing in the practice exercises (I'm on Chapter #3 Dishabituation):
- I read each word, and I subvocalise. I am not noticing any distinct change in the level of my subvocalisation in the set of exercises of this chapter (though while reading normally, my subvocalisation level has reduced). Also, I am ending up comprehending each word in the practice exercise. When do I know for sure that I have successfully completed the practice exercise and can move on?
Also, once I am done with the book, what practice am I to do to keep improving my reading speed?
Thanks a lot in advance.
Hi Anon,
When do I know for sure that I have successfully completed the practice exercise and can move on?
When you reach the end of the exercise. Don't over-think it, just go start to finish from one exercise to the next.
Once I am done with the book, what practice am I to do to keep improving my reading speed?
Go back to the exercises you found most helpful, or were more difficult to complete, and practice them again. Try out the various exercises on different types of text, fiction, non-fiction, magazines, newspapers, etc.
hi kris,
thanks for all the help. i'll keep posting when im stuck or in doubt (i.e. if you dont mind). thanks again
Anon