It's hard to call what this book teaches "rapid reading." That phrase makes it sound exotic and unreachable. I truly believe after reading this that everyday people can learn to read at 1000+ words per minute with excellent retention.
I first read this as a 20-year-old college student. With it, I learned to clock my reading rate at 350 words-per-minute. Like most people, I read from left-to-right in "rows of corn," sub-vocalizing. Although extremely bright, I never really could enjoy extensive reading. Doing it for school was a chore.
I tried all sorts of methods for taking notes on books. I tried a tape recorder. I tried writing in the margins. I tried post-it-notes. I tried marking page sections and writing notes longhand in a separate notebook. I tried typing at my computer as I read. I'd end up with sometimes dozens of pages of notes and outlines yet not feel like I could discuss the text fluently.
This book teaches how to process text differently. Now, I relax my eyes and ideas simply flow from the words. A page in a book is no longer like a step ladder or rows of corn -- but it is like a sculpture. As a pianist, I can say that reading text for me has become like reading music. Just as I can see a sheet of music and gain an idea of the song, I can look at a written page and see ideas. Every author has a rhythm and style.
After extensive and sometimes frustrating practice, based on techniques in this book, my understanding of text has completely changed. I am much more able to understand an author's central themes. Whereas before it seemed I could only think on a scale of words and sentences, now I can easily think on a scale of sections and chapters. I have much better judgement in taking notes and feel able to discuss books that I read much more fluently. Books that might have taken me 15 hours to read before now comfortably take 3 or 4.
I am now able to actually enjoy reading fiction. It's more like listening to a new peice of music now than forcing myself to plow through a haystack of text line-by-line and inch-by-inch. Literacy education truly needs to incorporate methods of visual reading. My only regret about this book was that I realized I hadn't been fully taught to read before!
The following is a summary of the main ideas in these books.
People read slowly because of the following reasons:
1. Subvocalization: This is to produce the sounds of the words mentally while they read. This habit essentially limits the reading speed to the speed of subvocalization. Subvocalization also has a side effect of making people read sequentially.
2. Regression: This is to backtrack while you read. This may be caused by a lack of confidence.
3. Lack of Purpose: Without clearly defining the purpose of their reading, people tend to read useless material with the same intensity as useful material. The book suggests using the appropriate amount of care to the materials at hand.
The book suggests various ways of overcoming the above problems. The book also gave some suggestions on notes taking to faciliate recall.
I read this book in less than 5 hours using speed reading techniques from other books. The reason why I can do it is quickly is because speed reading books generally do not have that much content. Hence they are amendable to the techniques speed reading.
On the bad side, I had trouble staying at the chapter per day pace, given a job, working on my Master's, and trying to spend time with my family. Still, I practiced, kept up with the new techniques, and continued to improve. Even though I left off just after I learned how to read at diagonals, it's stuck with me and been the best expenditure of time I've made.
I can't believe this isn't taught in school; it would've made college a completely different experience for me.
