ANOTHER EXERCISE TO GET YOU READING FASTER

Now let's do another exercise which trains your eyes to see more words at a time and also trains you to process the information quicker. In this exercise, you practice reading bits of information in a split second in order to push yourself to think quicker. Take a blank piece of paper, and place it over all of the words in the column below. Now lower the paper enough so that you can see the first word, BBA. Quickly raise the paper again so that the word is only seen for a split second. Lower and raise the paper as quick as you can. Try and recite the letters you just saw. Then move on to the next work, WJK, and do the same. This exercises pushes your mind to process and retain information in an instant.

BBA

WJK

ZNHU

BYCS

FWMH

XCZQE

DIWHL

ZXJQW

MQRMYV

MXVNMW

SUMMER

BATHING

FOOTBALL

You remembered the words at the end of the exercise because you didn't read them as a series of unrelated letters. You took in the whole combination of letters instantly to produce something meaningful -- a word you knew. When we read faster, we do the same with whole groups of words. Instead of reading word by word, you take in groups of words to create phrases or larger groups of meaning. You have already started to do this with certain words. Try the same exercise with the following words:

Hot Dog

Ice Cream

Apple Pie

Book Cover

Toaster Oven

Tennis Player

You didn't see the above words as a series of unrelated letters, and you didn't see them as a series of unrelated words. You saw the whole phrase and took it in all at once. You read hot dog as one object - a hot dog, not as two separate words meaning two separate things.

When you read, read in groups of words, two, three, or four at a time. Take a minute now and lower and raise the paper. See if you can get these phrases:

how much raining cats and dogs Oh, what a relief it is

lunch time singing in the rain many stars in the sky

summer time read in phrases Ants are small insects

water balloon can you believe it? colors in the rainbow

feeling good Been a long day faster than a speeding jet

light eater down by the river-side who stole the cookie?

You can practice this exercise on newspapers. Newspapers are great because they have narrow columns of words. Reading down the column helps you read more than one word at once.

Now you have an understanding of how you read. You make a series of stops along each line. At each stop, you processes that information. To quicken your speed, you increase the number of words you take in per stop, and decrease the time you spend at each stop. Now what I'd like to do is have you try something different. You're going to push yourself to read faster. You'll get better at reading the same way you get better at sports.