Triple your reading speed - and get a career-explosion!

Speed Reading: Rods and cones

By H. Bernard Wechsler

December 15 2005

Your Brain Reads Holistically And Fills in The Blanks A core element of being a SpeedLearner is trusting in the unfolding, having confidence that your body and brain are fully capable of following their programming without your conscious assistance. Your eyes blink twenty-five times per minutes in order to wash and keep them moist and functioning. Your heartbeats seventy-times per minute to keep all the systems operational by pumping blood containing oxygen and glucose. Your lungs breathe nine to twelve times per minute to oxygenate your cells. Your vision acts like a camera and your brain reverses the input to create right-side-up - from the original ‘up-side-down’. Optic Chiasma is the reality that our left-hemisphere (brain), controls the right-side of our body, while the right-hemisphere runs the left-side of the body. This nervous system programming automatically reverses biological tissue by ‘crossing-over’ (decussation). Optic Chiasma ‘switch’ is located at the intersection of the ‘optic-nerve’. Are you aware your brain contains a 10-20,000 words dictionary in your native language that is filed in the pathways of long-term memory. Reading is a two-step process: the recognition of the words (sight-reading), and decoding the symbols for meaning. The comparison between what is read and its meaning, is created in milliseconds, and appears instantaneously to our conscious mind. The standard ‘grammar’ of our language is based on the ‘syntax’ (order), and ‘morphology’ (structure of words), hardwired in our original programming. It works on auto-pilot. We can read with meaning even though words are misspelled – omitted – or reversed because our programming compensates to gain ‘gist’, the essence of decoding symbols. Our brain fills in the blanks for usefulness. Let’s see you read the following ‘vowel-less’ and jumbled sentence relying on your brain’s ‘fill-in’ and reversal program. “Geuss yn cn ndrstnd th ssnc fo th txt fi yuo raed ti ni eno lkoo . Raedng si th uaotmtaci sbstitnoi fo th mssng lttrs fr sns nd mnng.” Translated – “Guess you can understand the sense of the text if you read it in one look. Reading is the automatic substitution for the missing letter for sense and meaning.” How This Cognitive Skill Creates SpeedLearning You have been taught to read left-to-right, but you can also read right-to-left and diagnonally. The benefit of dextrosinistral (right-to-left) reading, and information processing using a slanting and oblique (diagnonally), strategy, saves you up to 90 minutes daily. Trace-flow vs Blind Flow Using a pacer – to double your reading-speed – works because of the ‘motion-detectors’ in our eyes – causing our ‘eyes-to-follow-a-moving-object’. The strategy is to link (integrate) our eyes-brain and hand to give up reading one-word-at-a-time. Our eyes follow the rhythmic-flow of our pacer – not merely pointing to one-word and then the next. The rhythmic-strategies (movements), of our pacer creates a ‘Trace’ – like ‘smoke’, which is a roadmap to both our left and right-brains. In the beginning we have to consciously think of the strategy-steps of ‘chunking’, but with practice it becomes a neuroconnection – a habit. ‘Blind-flow’, occurs when our eyes move from the last-word of any sentence to the first-word of the succeeding sentence. Think about it – what do you read in the step and time after you finish the last-word in the sentence, until you eyes arrive at the beginning of the next-sentence? The answer is nothing! It is action-with-no-reaction – ‘amnesia’, and it wastes up to ninety-minutes daily because you go ‘blind’, and get no meaning from you reading. Trace-flow is good because it reduces and almost eliminates ‘regressions’, a time-waster, and double your reading speed because of ‘entrainment’, your eyes and brain ‘race’ to catch up with the rhythmic-movements of your pacer. Trace-flow improves concentration up to 20%, comprehension about 15%, and long-term memory – another 20%. Blind-flow is lousy because it wastes your precious time day-after-day, without offering any benefits. More Benefits of Trace-flow SpeedLearning is the ability to ‘chunk’ (divide sentences), and ‘crunch’ (ignore spaces between words) – run-them-together, yet obtain full meaning. Snailing is the ability to read linearly one-word-at-a-time, with comprehension. Yes, there is a place for ‘snailing’ – reading out-loud, learning sections of Shakespeare, memorizing a script or presentation. We will always use snailing for specific tasks, and speedlearning for text, testing and heavy-research. Reading Backwards Some experts say – “Reading ‘backwards’ is the secret of speed reading.” SpeedLearning has multiple ‘strategies’ – and reading sinestrodextral (left-to-right) dextrosinistral (right-to-left), and ‘diagonally’, slanting and oblique - are speedlearning strategies using our brain’s specializations. We create a ‘mosaic’ – the holistic map with contextual meaning – not merely one-word-at-a-time. A mosaic produces meaning because it uses ‘working-memory’ to link the ideas in the previous sentence and paragraph to this sentence. Context creates the big-picture – the ‘backstory’, and permits us to understand the ‘nuances’ (shades-of-meaning), the ideas-in-action. Our brain will fill-in all the blanks as you have proven – and reading ‘alternatively’, first left-to-right, and returning – right-to-left, saves time and produces a movie (mosaic), instead of concentrating on a single-picture – one-word-at-a-time. How do you learn to read right-to-left? Use your pacer and overline/underline each succeeding sentence and let your brain ‘reverse’ the order. The faster you read forward and ‘backwards’, the easier your brain works to trigger converting right-to-left, to left-to-right comprehension. An example is using the “Z for Zorro” – moving diagonally down the page using an oblique strategy. It becomes natural and a habit through practice. Remembering What We Read After completing the text – take five-seconds to create a mental-visualization to remind you of the ideas conveyed. Use your senses to link the Association with the mental-picture. This lays-down long-term memory. Repetition is the mother of learning - it is a scientific fact – so use it. Another fact is that memory consists of using your inner-eye to create a mental- link and association between what you finished reading and how you intend to remember it. All it takes is five-seconds to make-up a mnemonic that will snap the new idea into consciousness. “Thirty-days-hath-September..” works because we laid down long-term memory circuits, and so will any ‘imagery’ you make up to remind you of the new text you completed. Which rules – Eye-Pattern-Movement or Field-of-Vision? Faster reading is not achieved by learning ‘quicker’ eye-movement strategies, but by ‘perceptual-span’ improvement – an expansion of our visual-field. SpeedLearning strategies create ‘trace-flows’ to cue our eyes and brain for rhythmic-information-processing Remember, we can widen our acuity for sight-reading from a minimum of six characters (letters), to a maximum of thirty-five symbols. It is the difference between reading one-word-at-a-time, mentally hearing the words in our mind’s eye, and regressing twenty-times per page, and SpeedLearning triple your present reading speed with better comprehension. What Single Skill Rules SpeedLearning? The use of our ‘peripheral-vision’, operated by the Rods residing in our retina, added to the Cones situated to the Fovea-Centralis, permits a tripling – the ability to read and remember three-books, articles or reports in the time it takes others to read even one. Sure, ‘reading-backwards’ works and saves hours, but the key to the lock is increasing the width of characters our eyes ‘gulp’ in each saccade and fixation. Chunking is dividing each sentence into three-two, or even one-section. It is easy to triple-chunk – read three-words in each section, harder to comprehend six-words in in each-section (double-chunk), and requires still more practice to decode an entire sentence at-a-time (single-chunking). Most of us are greatly satisfied to triple our reading speed with inproved comprehension – and never learn double or dream of seeking the heights of ‘single-chunking’. You have the gift and talent to triple-double, and single-chunk. It requires ‘volition’ – a decision. Permission is Required Our conscious mind governs linear reading – a left-brain specialization organizing words in a logical, left-to-right information processing. We have been reinforcing this system daily since 3rd grade and it got you where you are. Would you be better off reading, learning and testing faster, and with more comprehension? SpeedLearning adds to left-brain verbalization, right-brain specializations of pattern-recognition, spatial skills, parallel-processing, intuition, emotional and mental-pictures for nuances (shades), and increased creativity. Reading symbols with comprehension in context requires the activation of Broca’s, Wernicke’s Areas, and the Angular gyrus. For shades of meaning, and emotional flavor – we add the right-brain skills, including our limbic-system decision-making - based on contextual meaning. We never omit linear, logical, organized left-brain conversion of meaning from symbols, but add subtle and enhancing skills of our non-verbal right-brain. Because we have reinforced left-brain reading for years and often decades, we must use ‘stressbusting’ techniques to relax and gain ‘permission’ to introduce the right-brain programming. Permission is given by practice using the Pacer and its ‘Trace-Flow’ to create a new neuropathway which later becomes a habit. Remember – habits have a life of their own and will not vacate their dominance without active practice. We do not evict ‘snaling’, just making space for the new habits of SpeedLearning. Do We Read in Different Ways? Foveal (shapest focus of Cones), works like a ‘magnifier’ within the limited perception-span of six-letters in the foveal centralis. Peripheral-Vision (Rods of the retina), add five-times as much information processing, and acts as a Data Compressor. We use and require both systems for total meaning and enhanced creativity. Ninety-nine percent of college-graduates rely exclusively on ‘foveal’ vision for reading, while only one-percent ever add the Rod photoreceptors of peripheral-vision. You can graduate college through a super-effort and staying up all night, but it is a great waster of your valuable time. Foveal reading is based on one-word-at-a-time, while peripheral-vision is capable of reading up to six-words at-a-time. SpeedLearning concentrates on tripling your reading speed with better comprehension and long-term memory, scanning three- words simultaneously. The secret is permitting our untrained peripheral-vision (six muscles in each eye, of which two are dormant), to exercise its talent by scanning sections of a sentence (chunking), whole-sentences, and even multiple sentences, (above and below). Reading in context above-and-below the sentence viewed with foveal-vision – is called Supra-Infra Vision. It comes from accelerating our focusing strategies from one-word-at-a-time to wider perceptual spans of information processing. SpeedLearning is based on practice in integrating the cones and rods of our retina for accelerated reading. Depend on the brain to fill-in the gaps of meaning. Our conscious mind believes that we are ‘skipping’ words, phrases and sentences when we use peripheral-vision, while the information is processed non-consciously by our right (non-verbal), brain. The reality is that we ‘skip’ nothing, not even punctuation-marks. Practice does make perfect and create a new supplemental reading habit. Behavior changes begin with one-small, tiny modification. It’s your ball copyright © 2004 H. Bernard Wechsler www.speedlearning.org hbw@speedlearning.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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