~Special thanks to

my friend Vlad Coroeanu

for the book cover design.~

The book was a wonderful opportunity to become aware of how I read

on a daily basis and the unconscious habits that stops me read faster.
Any type of progress, in any area, comes by realizing where you are first
and then what you can do to improve the situation. Through his tips and
advices, this book can lend you a helping hand in realizing the bad
reading habits and creating some simple solutions for cultivating rituals
that make you read faster and more effectively.
Radu Dascalul, holistic living blogger on www.radu-dascalul.com

INTRODUCTION
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
THE HABITS
READING IS A HABIT
THE LAST TIME YOU LEARNED TO READ
HABITS THAT HOLD YOU BACK
SUBVOCALISATION
UNDERSTANDING SUBVOCALIZATION
PHONETIC LEARNING
THE IMPORTANCE OF USING FEWER BODY PARTS
REGRESSION
THE PROBLEM WITH REGRESSION
WHEN ITS OKAY TO REGRESS
WHY READERS REGRESS
FIXATION
UNDERSTANDING FIXATION
FREQUENT STOPS AND CONSTANT MOVEMENT
FIXATION AND PHONETIC READING
CHALLENGING AN ESTABLISHED THEORY
THE MORE COMPREHENSION, THE QUICKER THE READ.
FEWER FIXATIONS + BIGGER VISION SPAN= FASTER READING
HOW VOCABULARY AND FAMILIARITY AFFECT FIXATION

Introduction

A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to
quit them.
Stephen King, The Dark Tower

You don not need me to tell you we live in a time of

information overload. Everywhere you look we are bombarded
with information telling us what to buy, how to install new
software, who to elect, what to eat, habits you should brake,
skills you do and skills you do not need. You know this
information is everywhere you look on TV , online, on
magazines stands and bookshelves, product brochures,
airplanes and trains, in the newspaper and even in the doctors
office. But that is not all, think of how much information you
need just to do your job ... or even get a job. If you are in school
the amount of information you are expected to learn and retain
increases with each passive year. If you decide to go to college
you will spend 2-3-4 or more hours doing nothing but reading
and hopefully learning too :D
I do not think any of you would argue that information is
everywhere we turn and not only that, there always seems to
be new way of delivering to the masses. Im even rolling to say
that theres too much information for us to take in and not

nearly enough time to absorb it all and for many of us thats a

problem. An inability to take in all the information thats
important whether instructional or entertaining or otherwise
can quickly become frustrating and overwhelming, it can even
makes us even the smartest of us feel inadequate or heres
something else that might make you feel inadequate: The
average person reads about 150 words a minute and I know
that really sound a lot but really isnt . Even if you read 300 or
even 400 words/minute you still may not reading fast enough
to get ahead highly competitive and information packed world.
Knowledge is power

Do you know what is going to take to get ahead? Well if you

want to get ahead in todays world you need more knowledge
than the guy sitting next to you and even that is not enough,
you actually need to acquire more knowledge than everyone
who is competing for the same job as you, for the same deals as
you and even the same partners as you.
Why? Well, because in todays world knowledge is power.
The more you read the more knowledge you acquire. Reading is
the gateway to more knowledge. Did you read the newspaper
today? Well if you did, did you learned something that maybe
you didnt know before you started the newspaper. Maybe
youve learned the name of some newly elected official, or
learned about a new program being offer in your community.

The point is you didnt know about the information before you
just learned it and you learned it by simply picking up the
newsletter and spending maybe 25 or 30 minutes or more
reading about it and once youve learn the speed reading
techniques it would be definitely less.
And heres another reason why speed reading is so important.
When youre the type of person who easily gain knowledge
people are more naturally more attracted to you, not so much
in a physical way but socially.

What is the most important commodity in todays world? Is it

gold, oil, foreign currency? Well if you guessed any of these,
guess what? Youre wrong. In todays competitive economy
knowledge is without a doubt the most important commodity
Successful companies realize that technology advances at
record speed and once popular products quickly become
obsolete. They understand that gaining the competitive edge
requires an ability to continually create new knowledge and use
that knowledge to create newer and better products that take
advantage of new technologies. To make effective decisions
these company also require information wisdom and
knowledge very relevant and accurate.
If you want to achieve the same level of success as these
companies or simple want to achieve your own personal goals

you must be able to absorb knew knowledge, and the best way
you can do that is by reading as much as you can as often as
you can and as fast as you can.

The Habits

Habits, we all have them. Some are good like getting to class on
time or getting to work on time and some of them not so good
like procrastination or not wearing a seatbelt.
Reading is a habit

When it comes to reading habits its important to understand

that are neither good or bad. Their not something that to feel
ashamed or embarrassed about either. What is most important
to understand is reading habits exists, and with you along with
most readers probably practice some of the most common
ones. Even though their neither good or bad, reading habits
develop long ago cause you to read more slowly than you
could if they werent standing in your way. All your reading
habits tents to interfere with your reading concentration so you
waste time rereading materials. Old reading habits can also
cause you to tire more easily in.
Most readers develop their current reading habits back when
they where young and for the most of them that was the first
time they learned.

The last time you learned to read

Do you remember the last time you learned to read? Have you
thinked of the last time you learned to read? Chances are when
you where talk to readers you were in the first grade, or even
the second or third grade. Whatever the grade does not really
matter, what matters is that besides that it was the first time in
your life when youve learned to read. Grave school it was
probably the only time youve learned to read. Now think about
it! Once you could read, those picture filled in childrens books,
you know that sentences that have about two to five words per
sentence. That was basically it. Your teacher was satisfied that
you know how to read then. Well reading isnt like the others
subjects youve studied in school. As you advance to each
higher grade you learned more about the core subjects like
math and history, but that not really happen with reading. You
learned what you learned during the grade you were first
thought to read and since then there probably has not been
any more instruction. And here you are trying to read really
thick college textbooks, business proposals, maybe trade
journals with lots of jargon in them. And youre reading this
stuff using the same basic skills you were thought first time and
the only time youve learned how to read. No wonder reading
really excites you! Reading this tells me a lot about you, it tells
me that you acknowledge that your reading speed isnt were
you liked you to be, it tells me that your current reading skills

are holding you back from the goals that youve trying to
achieve
Habits that hold you back

Before eliminating your reading habits you have to know them.

Here are the most common habits that interfere with the
readers ability to read faster and with better comprehension:
-Subvocalization
-Regression
-Fixation
-Daydreaming

Subvocalisation

Ok, now lets take a look at each of the habits starting with
subvocalization, which is by far the worst reading habit.
Understanding subvocalization

You know what subvocalization means? Its sounds a little scary

but really isnt. Its simple a term to describe the habitat of
reading with your larynges. Your larynges its a structure inside
your through that hold your vocal cord, and when I say you
read with your larynges all that really means is that you say the
words as you read them. People will move their lips while they

read are doing whats called voicing the words as they read
them. Not every reader says the words out loud or moves their
lips while they read, some are more settled. These readers hear
the words as they read and what they hear is more like a
whisper that moves along as they eyes continue reading.
The reason why people subvocalize can definitely be traced
back to the days when they first learned to read. Chances are
when you are back in grade school or whenever you first learn
to read you where taught to read phonetically.
Phonetic learning

And when youve talked to read phonetically you where first

thought to read individually sounds associated with each letter
on the alphabet, then youre thought the sounds of each
combination of letters make and finally you split all these
sounds together into simple words and Voila! You can read!
If you have young kids you are probably familiar with the
phonetic sense, its still popular and used in schools today. Not
only that learning to read phonetically involves several steps, it
also involve several body parts. Using your eyes you first need
to see the words on the page, and once you see it, than you
have to say the sound the letters make using your mouth and
your grade school teach you probably made you say these
sounds out loud in front of the class...and for a lot of kids that
was kind of embarrassing because the result is the risk of

making a mistake. But, your teacher made you do this so she

could be sure you were making the sounds correctly, she wasnt
being mean, she was just doing the job. Anyway, as you grow
older and your teacher wasnt around anymore you probably
starting to whispering these sounds and words in your mind
instead of saying it out loud or you started moving your lips so
that anyone around couldnt hear you. Seeing the words and
saying them was necessarily to your brain ability to learn the
words and develop association with those words. Right now
maybe you are wondering how such an affective teaching
method could be so bad, well heres the answer:
subvocalizatioon worked very well when you were a kid and it
still works very well for anyone is in the process of learning how
to read for the first time.
Now that you are all a grown up and youve accumulated years
and years of reading experience it isnt necessary to voice your
words as you read them in order to understand them. Thats
because your brain already knows a lot of the words.
The importance of using fewer body parts

What Im trying to say is instead of involving the brain, the ears,

the eyes, the mouth, your eyes and your brain is quite capable
of all of reading and comprehended all by themselves. You
dont need no help from your other body parts. So why did you
still use them? The reason you say the words while you read is

you are in the habit of doing that. Its true, you think that the
only way to understand what you are reading is by saying the
words to, but its not necessary. You dont say GO! every
time you see a green light . You dont because you already
know that green means go and the same is true with a lot of
things in your life. You build associations with words and you
dont need to repeat them word for word in order to
understand them . Like any habit, subvocalisation is a hard
habit to break, but it might be easier to break if you realize how
much this one single habit slows your reading speed and thats
what Im going to tell you next. I guarantee youll be shocked,
are you ready?
When you voice your words as you read them, as you do when
you subvocalize it means that you can only read as fast as you
can talk out loud. For most readers thats about 150 words/
minute. This is a reading rate that puts you in a category of a
slow reader. Slow readers are considered talkers, meaning that
they sound words out by moving their lips or they hear
internally their own voice as they read word per word. Being a
slow reader means you read between 100 and 200 words per
minute. So even you are a fast talker a pretty good chance you
are considered a slow reader. Even you can talk even faster ,
say between 200 and 300 words per minute, youll still going to
be considered an average reader so its definitely room for
improvement. Right now the reading speed isnt the issue, the

point can be made is that as long as you continue the habit of

subvocalization youll never achieve reading speeds associated
with excellent readers and thats about 700 words per minute
or more.
Do you say words in your head as you read them? If youre
unsure, pay more attention next time you are reading.
Other problems associated with subvocalization
A slow reading pace isnt the only problem when you are using
the habit of subvocalisation. When you subvocalize youre
more likely to get bored. You might have thought that the
material you readied its made you bored, but in fact whats
boring you is in fact will be the sound of your own voice. When
you subvocalize you probably doing in a monotone
expressionless manner so the sound inside your head drowns
on and on and before you know it youre feeling tired,
uninterested and perhaps starting to daydream.
I know I may put subvocalisation in a less than brilliant
light but there are times when this reading habit comes in
handy. Now here are some times that you may slow your
reading speed down and intentionally subvocalize:
- When you are reading a really important document like
maybe a contract especially when you do not have a legal
background

- When you are reading material thats very challenging

- If you try to memorize something when you are studying,
when you are reading dialogs plays and maybe religious
texts
- When you are in a very loud distracting environment and
you are having trouble concentrating on what you are
reading

Regression

The next reading habit i want talk about, if you are serious
about improving your reading speed is called regression,
rereading, back skipping, going back over what youve just
read they all mean the same thing. Rather than continuing
in a foreword motion, regression is the process of going
backwards to reread stuff you have already read. Is this
happing to you? I think all of us expressed regression at
least once and probably a lot more than that. Regression is
common among readers and its a habit that will slow your
reading speed and have you scratching your head
wondering what did I just read?

The problem with regression

Well next time you have a time observe someone reading

silently focusing on their eyes and as they watch dont be
surprised if you see that persons eyes moving forward and
suddenly twitching backwards. :) Its actually funny to
watch but what it does to your reading speed and
comprehension is no laughing matter. Imagine if thats the
way we walked you would see people outside on the walk
taking one step forward and another step forward and
then suddenly a step backwards, two steps backwards.
Well that is not the way to walk and believe me it is not
the way to read either. If you saw people walking that way
you definitely think something was wrong or maybe it had
a little to much to drink. No matter what you have thought
you have to agree that anybody walking that way wouldnt
be making much progress and thats exactly the problem
that happens when people regress as they read. They
dont make much progress than why the readers do it?
When its okay to regress

Well sometimes but not very often regression it is

necessary. If sometimes is difficult to avoid regressing
when what you are reading is academically, technical in

nature, sometimes the author way of writing is ineffective

in engaging his of her audience.
The most of times people regress is because regression is a
habit. We do it even we dont realize, this is called
unconscious regression. This is happened because we
think we dont capture the first time the information right
the first time. For whatever reason you dont trust your
brain so you go back and double check your brains ability
by rereading you just read. Now regression happens at a
conscious level too. Sometimes you just now you dont
understand what you read or maybe you missed out
something really important in what you just read. This
happens a lot when readers gets to the bottom of the
page, thats when they realize even their eyes where
moving across each line their mind were someone else.

Some estimates put the amount of time that people spent

rereading or back skipping or whatever you want to call it
at 33%. That means that at every hour the typical reader
spends around 20 minutes out of 60 rereading the same
material and sometimes we rereading it over and over
again . It also means that just 40 minutes of every hour is
spent going forward. Regression also causes problems

with comprehension. When you read in a forward

direction and than go backwards you cant help but loose
track at the point that the words are trying to make. When
you see a sentence flow disrupted by regressing its nearly
impossible to understand that meaning of that sentence.
Why readers regress

What else causes regression? Well sometimes regression is

caused by subvocalization. When you subvocalize your
eyes and your mouth dont always progress at the same
speed, sometimes your eyes raise ahead of your mouth. So
what you have is a situation in each your eyes read
something when your mouth is busying reading something
else. Needless to say when really this happened confusion
of what was just read is never far behind, so you go back
and reread this time trying hard to get your eyes and your
mouth to move along and sync. Sometimes people regress
because their compelled to do it. When some people need
to reread is no different than their need to double, triple
checked the material. Well in this situation regression is
considered a sort of compulsive behavior and anyone who
refuse it to trust his or her own ability to understand what
was read will always go back and reread material
sometime over and over again.When its compulsive the

regression habit is a bit harder to brake. Finally some

readers simply believe that slow reading is better reading.
They fall in victim to the myth that comprehension
requires slow purposeful and repetitive reading, and
because of what they believe they refuse to read anything
differently..

Fixation

Understanding fixation

Now I want to spent some time on something that readers

called fixation. Fixation itself isnt a habit, its something
that your eyes do naturally but when is not done right
fixation causes inefficient reading. I realize this sounds a
little confusing right now so let me start by explaining
what fixation is.
Frequent stops and constant movement

Your probably already know that before images can

register in your mind your eyes need to stop moving and
still themselves. Well fixation is basically the eyes ability
to stop moving so do they can focus. If it wasnt possible to
fixate everything you look at will be one big blur. The size

of what you are looking at doesnt matter. It really doesnt

matter how close or how far away often the distance it is.
When you want to focus you have to settle your eyes on
something and allow them the chance to be still, and that
same principle still applies to the words that you read.
When you want your eyes to see the words you are trying
to read your eyes must make frequent stops on the words
in each sentence. Your eyes dont have to stop very long
but in fact they dont and really they cant. Why ? Because
the process of reading requires that your eyes continually
move forward from one sentence to the next easily
moving to the right to the end of the line, once you are
there with your eyes swing back to the left when they
begin their journey across to the next line and so on.
Wondering how your eyes can stop and at the same
time move? The reason is because eyes fixations dont
operate alone. Fixations, which are also called eye stops
occur countless times a day and most of the time you
dont even realize they are happening working alongside,
fixations are other things called eye jumps.
Fixation and phonetic reading

Now remember that Ive told you that phonetic reading or

sounding out the words, voicing it or hearing it in the mind

and then comprehend it. Now I want to tell you everyone

who is still in the habit of reading phonetically reads on a
word by word basis. So if you still read phonetically which
you probably do your eyes will stop or fixate on nearly
every word you read and then take the time to decode
each one before moving on to the next. Let me give you an
example to help you make clear what Im trying to say: If
there are 10 words in every line of text which youve read
and you read word per word mean that your eyes fixate
about 9 times every time you read a short line of text.
Multiply that by a number of line ...well you dont have to
be a mathematician to realise thats quite o bit of jumping
and stopping. Most readers fixate about 4 times a second
which means their eyes stop every quarter of a second and
if you are a typical reader that means that you are reading
only 4 words per second.

Challenging an established theory

Up until about a century ago was commonly believe that

everyone read one word at a time until than fluctuations
and reading speed where a tribute to how quickly readers
comprehended what they read.

The more comprehension, the quicker the read.

At the time it sounded like a good theory, but like any

good theory it was soon challenged. Researchers want to
find out whether something else was happening during
reading so they started some experiments to find out.
Those experiments are what led to the dictation of eye
fixations. Researchers realize that rather than reading at a
steady pace, reading consist of a series of fits and starts or
fixations and along with this discovery came the realization
that rather than quicker word identification and
comprehension, fewer fixations actually led to faster
reading.

Fewer fixations + bigger vision span= faster reading

Further experiments led resources on to the realization

that a single fixation point didnt always consist of a single
word. There were experiments that often time a single
fixation point included several words. They also realize
that because we have peripheral vision many readers can
see many of the words and letters on both sides of the
fixation point. They call this expended view/ the vision
span and determine that it could it be narrow or even
wide. And today anyone who reads word per word is

consider of having a narrow span and anyone capable of

reading more words during a single fixation is consider to
have a wide eye span. The reason why I bring vision span
now is because also have an effect about reading speed.
Fewer eye fixations combined with an increased vision
spam and multiple word fixation points all ad up to faster
reading speed. So if you want to be a faster reader you will
have to take off your blinders and expend your vision
span. You will also break that old habit that you have
learned long ago about fixating on individual words and
develop a new habit that includes multiple words in a
single fixation point.

How vocabulary and familiarity affect fixation

The more familiar you are with the words you are reading the
fewer fixations that youll make. When you read words or
writing stuff you are not familiar with your eyes tend to stop
more often because your brain has not created the necessary
associations. Thank back to any time you tried interpreting a
difficult text. It took a long time didnt it? Because we dont talk
like that anymore, you didnt understand the words and the
increased fixations slowed your reading. The point I try to make
is the larger your vocabulary the more words your brain
recognize it right away. And when you recognize all the words
right away you will be able to take in more words with each eye

fixation. So the more you will expand your vocabulary the more
effective you will be at speed reading.
If the topic you are reading is familiar to you , you naturally
have more confidence in what you are reading an when you are
more confident you are less likely to doubt yourself and
regress. So as a result you can take in more words with each
eye fixation. Now I realize that its not possible to be an expert
in every field but without a doubt the more you know whether
from your education or your life experience the faster you will
read because you will be more familiar with the material, and
when you will increase your reading speed you will read more,
youll enjoy more and you will gain more knowledge as a result.