Speed Reading - Myth or Possibility

[MrPurple]

Hey guys, I have been looking into this and I am wondering if it is possible to increase my reading speeds.
And if so do you know of any tools, guides, workbooks, etc that can help with this little venture.

So far I found 2 viable sources but I am skeptical about shelling out $$ without other opinions.

Here are the two links I came accross:

http://www.acereader.com/

http://www.volitionth.com/index.htm

Thanks guys.

It's possible. One of my buddies can read like a demon. No idea how he does it. He gave me some website he said he learned it from. No idea what it was though.

[M_Six]

My wife can read a 350 pg paperback in an afternoon. She reads full hardcovers in two days or less. I don't know how she does it. She averages less than 5 seconds per page. She says she can look at a paragraph as a whole and understand it completely without actually reading each word. I've never been able to figure it out.

[cbuddha42]

hum i read the words but im still pretty fast so never tried to increase my speed

but 5 seconds a page? dang must do really quick noun/verb scan and thats it

[Warthog]

I can speed read quite well - not the extent they do but I can read very fast....I don't get much of the details but I definately get the gist of it, enough to tell you about it.

Had to make it through high school somehow

[MrPurple]

From what I understand the main method to speed reading is that you stop speaking the words, and start seeing them. The trick is to change your mind to be able to see the words as images and understand them.
Now I understand the concept but how to learn it is what I am looking for. That web site would be great Whir, too bad you don't have it.

Well I am going to look into this more and try to find cheap/free ways to learn it. We will see what happens.

[Mike]

I can read fairly quickly and still can remember what I read. I have always been kind of interested in speed reading, it seems to be the next step.

Whir: Could you possibly ask your friend about that web-site?

[brandon184]

I taught myself how to speed read when I was a youngster.

[NeoStarO1]

Originally posted by MrPurple
From what I understand the main method to speed reading is that you stop speaking the words, and start seeing them. The trick is to change your mind to be able to see the words as images and understand them.

Mr. P here has a good statement here. I believe true cuz that what happens with caption readers. Must see fast to "read" if make any sense.

If you really want to learn to speed read some more. May i suggest a cheep method. closed caption. Make sure you have a good caption decoder on your tv. Learn to use the captions on your tv and then also try to use the caption on NewsChannels or DateLine News. The captions fly so fast you need to be able to "see" them as an image and not as words. or you won't grasp any of it. Once you get used to the captions you won't even relize they are there anymore because you will see the entire of movie pictures and captions all in one image.

Mr. P explains it better than me.

[kranich]

I just like reading and therefore am in no hurry to do so.