How to Read Faster

 

My present fascination with audiobooks reminded me of a 'speed reading' program I had when I was in high school. The program came via cassette tapes (remember those?) and a booklet. According to the program, most people can read only as fast as they can speak.

Look at how kids are taught language - they start with letters and the sounds the letters represent. Then they move on to words (combinations of letters) and the sounds the combinations make. As the years go by the association between letters (and words) and their sounds become automatic - we see a word, and the 'sound' automatically pops up in our head, then our brains process the meaning.

But the flaw in this way of learning is that we have to HEAR the word, whether aloud or silently in our heads, before our brain can give us the meaning of the word. For example:

S-U-N-F-L-O-W-E-R

Compare that with the picture at the start of this post. They both represent the same thing. But the interpretation of S-U-N-F-L-O-W-E-R takes just a tiny bit longer for our brains to process because we convert it to sound before we look for the meaning. But we didn't do that when we saw the picture. The image was immediately interpreted without the need to convert it to sound.

Look at our other senses - whenever we smell, taste, or touch something there is no need to convert what we sense to a sound. It automatically goes straight to the interpretation part of the brain.

Even if the conversion of words to sound is very fast, they all add up when you're reading materials with thousands of words, like books, for example. Plus it adds to the workload of the brain so it gets tired faster.

Ever wonder how kids who are born deaf learn to read? They are taught that the picture of the sunflower and the combination of S-U-N-F-L-O-W-E-R point to the same thing without the need to hear the word.

Unfortunately most need to hear the words we read before we allow our brains to give us their meanings. As a result, we can only read as fast as we can speak. In order for us to read faster, the program gives exercises that help UNLEARN the way we read.

Was the program successful for me? Yes it was... except for a small problem... it didn't address my problem of getting very sleepy just after reading a few paragraphs. ©

Technorati Tags: reading,language,advice,brain,learning

Ipod Touch: Another Pandora's Box

Every so often I get a gadget that brings out my obsessive compulsive side. The more customizable the gadget (and sometimes software) is, the more O-C I become.

I've been putting off getting an MP3 player for quite a while. For some reason listening to music while walking in a mall or riding a vehicle makes me disoriented and feel like I have a hangover. However a recent vacation to the province during which my brother and sister brought their ipods with them made me reconsider. The bad taste in music at the gym I go to was another reason.

5 days after getting home, I had an OC moment, surfed onto ebay and after 3 hours had my very own 16gb ipod touch. Music was just the start...

Music Videos - i'm not really fond of them, but i prefer them to full length movies since they're easier to download and convert. I don't even know why I put them onto my ipod but it's comforting to know that they're there.

Podcasts - where do I begin... daily motivational talks, short video clips, foreign language learning, news, photoshop tutorials, yoga, etc. etc. etc. No thanks to itunes i'm downloading hundreds of megabytes of stuff I doubt I'll ever listen to.

Audiobooks - it takes a good writer to transport me to the world he's created in his book. The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind was on of those. However listening to books is a lot of fun. I've started the 1st book of Harry Potter and I'm hooked.

In short, I'm downloading stuff of which only 10% is really what I need. I remember when I started blogging... I wanted to read all the blogs out there...

Baler, Aurora Outing

Searching or Waiting

Some say that we can't go on chasing love,  because like happiness, the more you chase after it the more elusive it becomes. They say that it'll just come at the right time. But what if all of us wait... then how do people find each other?

Shouldn't we make an effort to find it?

The Derma Wand

As far as the body is concerned, the more blood supply an organ gets, the healthier it is. This is very true of the skin - the biggest organ in the body. Aside from drinking lots of water, a common skin care advice is to frequently massage or stimulate the skin to promote better blood flow.

I read a pamphlet that advised gently touching the face with the tips of the fingers to promote healthier skin. I tried it and it worked. But being a lazy person, it was too tiring to do that every time I took a bath.

Thanks to TV Home Shopping, I saw this gadget just for a lazy guy like me :p - the Derma Wand

It acts by sending out what seems like electrical pulses when it comes close to the skin. It works well if you want to stimulate the skin. I don't know about wrinkles and blemishes though. Haven't tried it for that purpose... yet.