Speed reading myth #1 – Fast reading makes memorization less effective.

What is the reality: All the tests performed with fast readers clearly demonstrate that memorization is better than with slow readers. One of the reasons is that to manage to read a text quickly, fast readers must have an increased concentration compared to slow readers. Moreover, fast readers have more self-confidence in their capacities, which strengthens even more the memorization process.

Speed reading myth #2 – We can’t enjoy what we read quickly.

What is the reality: We can compare slow readers to observers who are standing too close to a monument like the Statue of Liberty. By being too close, they are not able to get the meaning the artist wanted to deliver because they read word for word and thus they only see a tiny part of the Statue and not as a whole.

On the contrary, fast readers are standing far enough to have a general overview of the whole Statue, and can completely appreciate the work of the artist.

Speed reading myth #3 – Fast reading increases eyestrain.

What is the reality: The principle of fast reading induces that fast readers have less muscular efforts to do because they make fewer eyes fixations per text line than slow readers.

Indeed when you read, the eyes movement along the text lines is not straight but rather in a sequence of successive jumps. At the end of each jump, the eye makes a fixation of the text and sends this picture to the brain. Thus, a very slow reader will make one fixation per word while a fast reader will make one fixation every five or six words.

For example, imagine a page made of 30 lines, 12 words per line, for a total of 360 words. A slow reader who reads word for word has to do 360 fixations (one per word), which means 360 eyes movements. A reader who reads 5 times faster will only make 72 fixations, which means 5 times less ocular movements than the slow reader.

Speed reading myth #4 – People should always read at the same speed.

What is the reality: There is absolutely no rule and no reason for this. The only rule is that you should be able to read rapidly a maximum of information whenever you need it. The rest of the time, everyone is absolutely free to read at the speed he prefers.

Now that you know that these speed reading myths are only myths and not the reality, you can be sure that learning how to read fast is nowadays one of the best investments in yourself you can do since information is now the new money. The more information you have, the richer you become. So, don’t wait to get rich and start learning how to speed read right now.

The Internet is a new continent where the maps are
constantly changing. What was a small stream becomes a
roaring river. What was a desert becomes a lush green
valley.

To keep up with the changing landscape of the Internet
you must read. And the best place to read about new
developments on the Internet is in Newsletters or
Ezines.

But you may not be reading efficiently.

Did you know that most of us use only 4% to 10% of our
mental abilities?

Speed reading is not just about reading faster; it’s
about learning to use much more of the extraordinary
powers of the Mind.

When you read, are you aware of an inner voice that
follows the words as your eyes move across the page or
the computer screen? This inner voice is called
‘subvocalization’. You probably experience it as a
slight movement in the tongue or throat region. As
long as you subvocalize, you limit your reading to the
speed of normal speech, to about 300 w.p.m.

The Mind is capable of thinking much faster than that.
So when you subvocalize, you’re literally holding back
your mind.

Try this exercise:

As you read, count to yourself, silently, from one to
ten. Or, repeat the sound ‘Eee’, ‘Eee’, ‘Eee’. It will
be impossible to do this at the same time as
subvocalizing, so this is an excellent way of breaking
the habit of subvocalization.

As you do this exercise, you’ll become aware that
you’re no longer processing the words in the
tongue/throat region but in an area called ‘thought
stream’ that you experience in the top of your head.

Thought stream moves much faster than subvocalization.
And that’s why people who subvocalize often have
comprehension problems.

There’s a mismatch between reading speed and thinking
speed. The Mind is constantly racing ahead of the
inner voice and so it gets bored. You experience this
as an inability to hold your attention on what you’re
reading. You have to back-skip words, or read the same
line twice.

As your reading speed catches up with your thinking
speed, reading becomes much less tiring and your
comprehension improves.

Once you’ve got a feeling for reading in ‘thought
stream’, the next thing to do is speed up your eye
movements. This will also help break the habit of
sub-vocalization, since your eyes will be moving
faster than you can possibly subvocalize.

Your eyes move across the written page in a series of
quick jumps. Between each jump there’s a stop lasting
a fraction of second, called a ‘fixation’. The
fixation is when the eye actually takes in the written
word.

The untrained eye takes about a quarter of a second at
each fixation, and takes in 2 or 3 words per fixation.

By speeding up you eye movements, you’ll learn to make
fewer fixations per line and take in more words per
fixation.

Try this exercise:

If you use a glass ‘anti-glare’ screen, draw 2
vertical lines in felt-tip, 5 cms apart, so that you
have a strip 5 cms wide located over the middle of the
text you are reading.

Now move your eyes in a ‘Z’ pattern down this central
strip, at a speed faster slightly faster than is
comfortable.

Because your Mind is not reading each word, it is
forced to ‘fill in the gaps’. This engages much more
of the Mind, since it has to build associations and
patterns in the written material. This in turn leads
to greater comprehension and increased memory of what
was read.

This technique takes advantage of the fact that much
of written English is highly redundant; a lot of words
can be skipped without any loss of meaning.

When your eyes move down a central strip of the text,
you also engage much more of your peripheral vision.
And that in turn brings the right hemisphere of the
brain into the reading process. You make much more use
of the right-brain’s ability to synthesize and build
relationships within the material.

So speed reading is not just about reading faster; it
also allows you to access much more of the brain and
thereby increases your comprehension and creativity.

For an excellent, free, speed-reading course, visit:

– The Speed Reading Course
[http://www.trans4mind.u-net.com/speed_reading/index.html]

Here are some more free speed-reading sites:

– The Study Hall Free Speed Reading Programs
http://www.studyhall.com/sread.htm

– Road To Reading Home [http://www.roadtoreading.org/]

– University of Texas Speed Reading
[http://www.utexas.edu/student/lsc/sprdg.html]

– Speed Reading Links
http://www.readingsoft.com/flinks.html

– ReadRace: Free Java application for speed reading
[http://supershareware.co.uk/Apps/8080.asp]

– WannaLearn.com: Personal Enrichment : Speed Reading
http://www.wannalearn.com/Personal_Enrichment/Speed_Reading/

We have already discussed the importance of developing a good math foundation for your preschoolers. The first, easiest, and best way to add math into your child’s early life is to add math to the reading you already do with your child. It is never too early to begin reading to your child, and it is never too early to add math concepts to that reading.

It isn’t necessary to run out and buy a bunch of preschool math books, although you might mention to friends and relatives that math related story books would be a good gift idea. You probably already have books with math concepts. For example, Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a wonderful story for introducing math concepts. It allows for early counting. It has size comparisons with too little, too big, and just right. It has one-to-one matching with baby bear and the little bed. Certainly you won’t use this terminology, but as you read you can point out these concepts. Three Blind Mice, Three Little Pigs, Three Little Kittens, and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed are other good examples you might already have.

Before spending lots of money on books, I suggest checking your local public library. You can check out books, read them with your child, and if the book seems to be one of those books your child wants you to read over and over, THEN you can buy it. Certainly use your library before buying anything you haven’t read from online sources.

If you are interested in buying your own math related books, I have several suggestions. I am a big fan of Dr. Seuss books. Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb introduces large numbers. Ten Apples Up On Top! is a good counting book. One fish two fish red fish blue fish is good for counting and colors. Horton Hears a Who! even introduces the concept of infinity. Many other Dr. Seuss books contain number concepts, colors, and shapes for reading with your child.

You may have read about or heard of Baby Einstein. If so, you need to know that having your young child watching the videos is a very bad idea! Research is showing that there should be NO SCREEN TIME for children under two and very limited time for the older child. However, the Baby Einstein My First Book of Numbers is a wonderful example of what a number picture book should be.

The Sesame Street book ABC and 1 2 3 is also an excellent math related picture book.

As you look into buying math picture books, there are some things you need to consider. The book should be colorful, interesting to you, and it needs to make sense–not just rhyme. Don’t assume that because it is about numbers that it is a good book. For example, I came across a book called One, Two, Three! by Sandra Boyton. I actually got confused as I read! One line said “… and when you want to explore, the number you need is FOUR.” WHY? What does four have to do with exploring? Another page said “Seven is perfect for a play.” Again, I questioned what that even meant. Any book you pick needs to be something you can talk about with your child. Choose books that you can read with enthusiasm. If a book doesn’t make sense to you, don’t buy it. I want to reiterate that it is not necessary to buy lots of number related books because you can find number concepts like counting and making comparisons in virtually any book.

As you read to your child, you should work on what is called “the language of space.” This refers to words like front, back, top, bottom, over, under, in front of, behind, first, last, in, on, corner, edge, surface, and so on. These are all important concepts for your child to understand when they start school. They can’t line up behind the blue line if they don’t know what ‘behind’ means.

When you are reading to your child, be sure to:

1. Hold your child in your lap.
2. Convey to your child how much you enjoy your reading time together.
3. Read everyday.
4. Get involved with the story. Read with lots of enthusiasm and expression. Use different voices. Be active by pointing out things on the pages. Ask questions.
5. Pay attention to your child’s responses. Know when to put the book away. If your child loses interest, do something different.
6. Be prepared to read the same book over and over and be enthusiastic each time.

Above all else, make reading FUN!

You like to read. You just don't like to read what the teacher tells you you have to read for class. Such boring books. Sure, they are called classics. Dickens, Elliot, Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott –all those and more. I guess if you were to read them on your own you may enjoy them.

School may have done you a disservice. All those book reports both written and oral. Theme, premise, overview.

Books are made to be enjoyed not suffered through.

To enjoy a book there is a proper way to read it.

Let's look at nonfiction.

Pick up the book. Feel its weight. Rotate it in your hand.

Look at the title. Ask yourself, before you open the pages, just what does the title tell you the book is about.

Now open it. Look at the table of contents. This should tell you a bit of what is going to be covered. If there is an introduction, read it. If you like jot down questions you want answered. Interact with the book.

Then start reading it.

If it were fiction you should note the point of view. By this I mean is it first person or second ?. How many points of view? What is the genre? Mystery? Adventure? Romance? Did it satisfy? Would you recommend this to your friend?

A non fiction book would be read to get information, Does it do that job?

Look at the appendix. Maybe it will also have an index.

Let's take an example.

The book to be read is a book by Zig Ziglar.

Ziglar was a motivational speaker who recently passed away.

You pick up his book called Top Performance with the subtitle. How to develop excellence in yourself and others.

Fine. The title tells you what you will expect t learn in the book.

How to present yourself

You notice it was written with the help of Jim Savage.

It is hard cover. There are about 288 pages.

You open to the page of contents It has three parts you notice. There are 16 chapters. An epilogue is at the end. A recommended reading list concludes the book.

There is a forward and an introduction. Each chapter opens with a quote and concludes with a summary called Performance Principles.

You start to read it. You like the style. Ziglar writes like a neighbor talking to you over the back fence. As he writes he instructs. Over and over he says you can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want .. It makes a person feel good.

So that is one example. I am sure that you get the idea.

Go. And enjoy reading for pleasure.

Biorhythms have been studied for many generations. As human beings, we are always trying to better understand ourselves and the study of biorhythms seeks to understand and plot our body’s natural cycles. This sounds simple until you are faced with your biorhythms presented as three mathematical lines on a graph. The reading and interpretation of both the current state of your biorhythms and the immediate future of your biorhythms can at first appear to be tricky.

Biorhythm readings are usually presented covering the three major biorhythm cycles of Physical, Emotional and Intellectual states. The readings are most commonly provided as a graphical curve with the horizontal line representing time (usually days) and the vertical line representing the reading for that time. The readings will be presented as being either a positive percentage, zero or a negative percentage – the maximum reading being 100% and the minimum reading being -100%. A reading of zero is actually a ‘middle reading’. Ok, so far so good, so for my physical biorhythm reading for today, I locate the physical biorhythm curve (usually blue), I look along the biorhythms graph to find today’s date and read vertically to get a reading that will be between plus one hundred percent and minus one hundred percent. Repeat then for Emotional Biorhythm and for Intellectual Biorhythm.

Ok, this is all very easy and I am sure that most of you understand how to read numbers from a graph. However, what is most important is the need to be able to interpret the biorhythm reading to give it meaning to you and to your current state of being. As I have said to a number of queries I have received concerning biorhythms, it is really up to the individual how much they get from their biorhythm reading. Some people will tell you that if they have all three biorhythms showing -100% that they will not leave their house whilst others (me included) prefer to see such negative indicators as a warning that we should perhaps take a little more care in applying ourselves to our daily lives – a forewarned is forearmed approach.

Taking this philosophy a step further, it is straightforward to see that a 100% reading for the physical biorhythm for example may indicate that we have more bounce in our step whereas for a -100% reading we may feel a little out of tune, perhaps a little quicker to get tired.

What is important to recognise is that biorhythm cycles cannot predict significant life events – despite what many biorhythm gurus will tell you. You may well have a heart attack on a 100% physical day or feel sad on a 100% emotional day – it is just that those events will not be quite as bad as if they had occurred on more negative days.

More noteworthy may be those days upon which a transition occurs between positive and negative – the day when a biorhythm reading crosses the zero line. We all interpret these days as transitions and observe that life in that area of biorhythm may be somewhat more chaotic than usual.

Whatever your views on biorhythms and however you choose to use and interpret them, remember that the very fact that you took the time out to study something for you that is about you is in itself a beneficial and life enhancing act.

Did you know that the simple act of reading to your baby can have profoundly positive affects on both her intellectual and emotional development?

Reading to infants is one of the best, and cheapest, ways to bond to your little one and help her developing brain to grow. For a baby, plot and drama don't matter. Reading is more about the gentle vibrations of your voice, the warmth of your breath as you cuddle her close. Reading to babies delivers a soft comfort, the rhythmic sounds will both sooth and stimulate.

How early should reading begin, and what are the overall benefits of starting early?
Some mothers read to their children while still in the womb. Though exaggerated theories have been formed about this, reading inutero definitely fosters voice recognition and provides a sense of comfort to the baby. In cases where mothers repeatedly read the same passages over months, babies after birth would calm down and listen when the familiar sounds began.

Hearing the mother's voice speaking can allow the child to become accustomed to recognizing that voice, as well as to learn the undertones and recognize the feelings lying beneath the tone in which something is said. Voice inflection can also make an infant and young child become a better reader because he or she will, in turn, learn to read with inflection.

Scientific studies investigating the value of fun, early reading experiences for children have shown that being read to will positively affect a child's level of intelligence, trust, and strengthen their social aptitude as they grow and develop.

Kid's books are made for all ages, from infants onward, although mothers who are concerned with voice recognition and the calming effects of reading need not be concerned with what they read to their infants. You can read the phone book if that's all you have! What's important is the calmness of your voice and the simple verbalization of sounds. For really little babies, merely repeating a few words with a sweet, soothing tone can be beneficial.

By reading to infants, we begin education early. Fun times with a book help children learn to listen, build longer and stronger attention spans. Reading helps them understand language at an earlier age. Just a few minutes a day of light reading can also improve your infant's ability to concentrate and absorb information at a higher rate, causing improvements in intelligence.

Most of all, reading to an infant can have a calming effect. Often, it doesn't matter if you are reading kid's books, poetry, Shakespeare, or the TV Guide – the sound of a soft, soothing voice reading will often calm an infant who is crying, feeling ill, or having trouble sleeping, helping him or her to relax. This is due in part to the relaxation felt by the party doing the reading through the simple task of reading the material, where little skill is required.

As you can see, reading kid's books to infants can have a great effect on both their disposition as a baby, as well as their social, intellectual, and emotional aptitude in the future. One of the best things you can do for your infant is to simply read aloud for a few minutes every day, improving knowledge and concentration ability and giving them a better foundation to build on.

Thirty years from now, when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II," you won't have to say, "Well … I shoveled shit in Louisiana. "

Morning,

Man I love this movie. Like Star Wars and Fight Club, I can quote these movies all day and everyday.

Sometimes when I sit back and enjoy a good flick I discover a great subtle nugget or two and when I watched Patton for the um-teeth time there was one that EVERY entrepreneur needs to hear.

The movie Patton. General Patton makes good use of being massively prepared to take on Rommel and the Afrikan Corps. The situation is freaking bleak because Patton has to take over a unit of muskrats and shape them in to a lean mean fighting machine and he only has a short amount of time to do it.

And to add more fuel to the fire, Patton is going up against a cracked seasoned General. A general that top historians say is the greatest General of all time, The Desert Fox himself Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel.

Everybody is tense. Patton has orders to beat Rommel or else they lose Afrika.

The Second Army Tank Corp is full of undisciplined officers, and lazy soldiers who no longer are motivated to fight and win.

AND

The Second Tank Corp took a huge beating leaving them battered, beaten and shaken of their confidence.

Yep. Things ain't rosy in the dessert and Patton has to shape the unit up in ten days to fight Rommel at El Guettar.

So Patton goes into raging bull mode and begins to break his foot in his officers and soldiers ass to get them to shape up. And the HATE him for it.

The day to finally punch the clock and meet Rommels tanks division on the field of battle and Patton (the underdog) beats him!

As Rommel leaves the battlefield Patton screams, I read your book Rommel.

Why did Patton win? How did he win? What where his keys to victory on the battlefield?

Massive preparation!

Patton didn't go into battle without knowing who his enemy was. Sun Tzu said knew this better than anyone.

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. "

But before the war even began Patton took another step to prepare for war.

When he got promoted and ever the being the man to never be complacent and be "basic" got his pilots license, flew over his tanks and came up with ways mobilize his tank division quicker and efficient.

Preparation is KEY.

Preparation is key for negotiating, closing sales and even WRITING COPY.

Go fourth and be magnificent.

Most people compromise their ability to speed read by limiting how much of their brain they employ while viewing a text. The average reader simply listens to what is written in a text. They can hear each word pronounced slowly inside of their head with an imaginary voice. Speed readers typically see more information, and run movies while reading at high speed. Both of these strategies limit your reading speed. In this article, I will describe how to integrate more of your senses to take your reading to supersonic speeds.

Imagine you are eating an apple. As you bite into its skin, it is crisp and snaps as your teeth crunch into its skin. At first, the apple makes you salivate with its tart taste, but soon you begin to savor its rich, full, sweet flavor. You can smell its orchard freshness as you continue to munch on this delicious fruit. Notice what we have just done? We experienced tastes, smells, and the feeling of eating the fruit. Your brain experienced no difficulty in experiencing the eating of this fruit while reading. Why aren’t you doing this while reading other material as well? Doesn’t it make sense, that the more senses you use while reading, the more brain you would stimulate? Doesn’t it make sense that the more brain that you stimulate the easier it will be to retain and recall that information later? This is precisely what does happen. Let us see how to accomplish this in more generic text.

Experiencing all of the senses while eating may seem easier than using your senses while studying something more bland like geography, but it doe not have to be that way. With a little imagination and creativity, you can replicate this same experience in everything that you read. Suppose I imagining that I am visiting New York City. I can smell the fumes coming from the cars driving up and down the avenue I am on. I feel the Sun heating my skin, and causing my eyes to squint. My feet begin to feel tired as I continue my investigation of the city that never sleeps. I can hear the voices of all the people moving around me, and see many buildings whose tops are impossible to see without straining to look upwards. Notice what just happened? I was able to replicate my ability to draw more of my senses into text while describing geography. This second scene had nothing to do with food or eating.

While speed reading begin to use your imagination to engage more of your senses. You will love the depth of the experience you gain by doing more than simply passively looking at words on a page. Your comprehension will improve, and your retention and recall will improve as well.

This might sound silly, but there is a “right” and a “wrong” way of reading. This is especially true for students, who are expected to summarize, analyze, and critique the readings assigned to them by their professors. The task can be particularly daunting to students who are working on a term paper, since they need to read a number of materials and then integrate them into the ongoing discourse that is their research paper.

So what forms of reading are “right,” and which are “wrong”? While reading a book or article, you want to read actively as opposed to passively. When you read passively, you are just receiving information; as you read, you aren’t digesting the information and forming an opinion. Of course, this is not very conducive to critical thinking, a practice for which you should always endeavor.

In contrast, active reading is a more interactive process. Active readers are participants in the reading process. As they pour over the text, they interact with it; they question it, challenge it, gather evidence and present counterevidence, converse with it even. Active reading helps you comprehend and recall what you have read, and ultimately makes for a better paper.

This explanation probably sounds pretty vague. Nonetheless, active reading isn’t just an abstract theoretical concept – there are concrete steps you can take towards becoming a more active reader!

Firstly, don’t approach a text with the assumption that you have to read it straight through, from beginning to end. Before you even start, scan through the title, the abstract, the table of contents and the index. This provides a framework for the rest of the readings. As you move on to the text itself, do not be afraid to skip from chapter to chapter or section to section. If you are reading a book, look at the index to see when your topic is mentioned. For research reports, try reading the conclusion before the results; this will give you a general idea of the author’s findings and will help you understand the specifics as presented in the results section. If a statement or subject has you confused, don’t be afraid to backtrack and reread a paragraph or even an entire chapter, if need be. After all, if you don’t understand a topic, it will be awfully hard to write coherently about it!

Active reading also involves forming an opinion of what you are reading. As you take in the text, pay attention to your emotional reactions to it. Does it make you angry? Upset? Incredulous? Why? Does the author make any claims that you find dubious? What have you read to date that supports or contradicts the author’s arguments? Does the author offer credible evidence for his statements, or is he just presenting his opinions or making speculations? Mark down these questions and your impressions as you go.

Another means of breaking the passive reading habit is to make use of those margins. This is easy if you are reading a photocopy or printout of an article. On the other hand, if you’re reading a text, photocopy any sections you plan on using in your paper so that you can mark them up without defacing the library’s property! It will save you a ton of time, so it’s well worth the extra expense. You can also save documents on your computer as Word files (rather than printing out hard copies) and “mark” them up using Word’s highlighting function. This conserves both money and paper!

Marking in the margins gives you pause to consider what you’ve read. It also draws your attention to important passages and makes note of them for future use. You can jot down anything that comes to mind. Underline or highlight important facts, statements, or findings in the text. Use arrows to connect relevant sections to one another and denote relationships. Write down any questions you might have. Is there something you don’t understand? A new avenue you might want to pursue? A topic that you need to research further? Make note of it! Single out any inconsistencies in the text along with points of discussion or debate. Gather evidence that supports or defies your viewpoint. Don’t shy away from statements you don’t understand or can’t explain – these are what you should pay closest attention to.

Consider not just the text in front of you, but the context in which it was written. Examine the time period in which the source was written. Your analysis should also include the perspective the author’s writing from – is she a psychologist or a biologist? How about a feminist, or perhaps a Marxist? How might the context influence the author’s conclusions? Keep these questions in mind as you read, and make note of any impressions you have while reading.

After you have finished a chapter or article, write up a brief summary. Not only will this aid in your understanding of what you’ve just read, but it will provide a helpful guide for later, when you’re writing your paper and need to sort through hundreds of pages of material. Besides, if you can’t easily write a paragraph or two, this is a clue that you need to go back and reread the source.

Don’t wait until you’re assigned a paper to try out these suggestions. The next time you need to do any reading for class, practice some active reading strategies. You’ll increase your comprehension of the material and your grades!

Today there is simply too much reading that is expected of your child and there is no way your child can avoid it. In schools students are bombarded with textbooks to read, notes to make and take, massive information to remember and recall in examination. The stress level sometimes hits the roof and students and parents both become demotivated.

One of the key to success is studies is to teach your child to read faster. Of course, there is a tendency to think that if I read faster, will I be able to understand what I am reading? Much as it might sound improbable, when you train yourself to read faster you can actually understand better and not only that you will start to think clearer as well.

Reading faster is a not a soft skill. It is more like a hard skill and can be compared to the analogy of riding a bicycle. If you know how to ride a bicycle think a minute on the time when you first attempted to ride a bicycle. Was it easy? Were you able to balance yourself the first time you sat on the bicycle? Probably not! However you persevered and sooner or later your body simply aligned itself and next thing you know you are able to balance and riding the bicycle becomes a piece of cake. The interesting thing about your ability to ride a bicycle is that once you have learnt this skill it stays with you for the rest of your life. It’s almost like a new software program been installed in your brain and you never can erase this program.

Reading faster is very much akin to the skill of riding a bicycle. You have to know the techniques involved in getting your eyes to capture words faster and convincing your brain to process this information effectively. Is it easy? Well it depends on your level of commitment and whether you do have the positive mental attitude to put to practice the technique until you reach a level of unconscious competency.

So as a parent what can you do to help your child to read faster?

First, you need to understand that our eyes are motivated by movement. Try to stare at an inanimate object for an extended period of time and see what happens. You will notice that your vision will start to blur and you may see a double. The thing about the human eyes is that it is a direct extension of our brain. So whatever you see with your eyes travel through the optic nerves and eventually the information is processed in the brain. The good news here is that our human eyes has the ability to process an image in roughly one quarter of a second. Further the eye has a wide peripheral vision that allows it to capture information within an arc of 170 degrees. This means that instead of looking at one word by one word, you can actually see up to 4 words in a single glance by exercising your peripheral vision. Therefore if you want to read faster what you got to do is to try to get your eyes to move across the words in double quick time. The most effective way for you to do this is to use your fingers to glide along the words as you read.

The second thing is that when you are gliding your fingers along the page try to sync your eyes with the finger movement and visualize the words that you are reading. Initially this may look impossible and frustrating, but actually lots of things are happening in your brain when you do this. One of it being that your brain is now trying as hard as possible to process the information as quickly as you can.

This happens because, just like any other creature in the animal kingdom, our body is configured to survive. The senses that we possess are intended to keep us on high alert against predators and to capture or find for food. As such it would be impossible for your eyes not to be able to follow the movement of the fingers when you glide through what you are reading as this is very much a survival instinct.

Once your brain get used to the faster than normal movement of your fingers on the texts or articles that you are reading the brain will enhance its ability to process the information quicker. In fact impossible as it may sound now, when you start doing this you will realize that you can actually understand better by reading faster.

So as a parent if you want to motivate your child to read faster, what you got to do is to inculcate the habit in your child to use his or her fingers to glide through any text that he or she is reading. As this habit becomes entrenched, the child will slowly but surely develop the habit to process the information faster and learn to develop higher concentration when reading.

The earlier you get your child started in this simple and rewarding habit the longer the benefit that you and your child will reap. Not only that as the child becomes comfortable with this method of reading, they will become more enthusiastic and may want to experiment with different text and articles which will improve their knowledge base.