Practical Speed Reading Video Transcript

By Ashley Rae
Alright...I was going to talk about

--the benefits of speed reading first.

--Why don't you guys tell me?
--What do you think would be a benefit
--of reading faster? "So many books, so little time!"
--What did you say Kisha?
--"So much more to read."
--So many things to read?
--I'm going to give you guys an example of
--how I use this technique to help me
--learn something I've always wanted
--to learn but never thought I had time to.
--I'm vegan, and I wanted to learn to cook
--gluten-free, not because I'm gluten intolerant
--but because it gives you more variety
--of grains in your diet, you know?
--So I wanted to learn how to do
--gluten-free baking. And if you read
--those books, there are, like, 30,000
--ingredients for the recipe. It's like, this
--is insane! But what I ended up doing was
--getting a couple books on it and I spent
--about forty-five minutes reading,
--about two hours cooking, and then
--the next day I was able to cook from scratch.
--"Oh my goodness!" So, it's really handy.
--I've had somebody bring me a parenting
--book, and she gave it to me, and I gave it
--back an hour later. And she said,
--'oh, you're not interested?' I said,
--'no, I finished!' So...
--"Comprehension is the same?" Comprehension
--is the same or better. For Kisha, it's going
--to be better, 'cause when you read too slow
--it [comprehension] will go up, even
--I found for me, going from 360 to 540,
--I found comprehension still got better
--because you can complete more units of...
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--complete units of thought "Mmhmm"

--in a sitting than you do if you're reading
--slower or if you break it up all the time
--I don't understand how people read
--a chapter every month or so,
--finish the book a year later, you know?
--It makes no sense to me!
--My goal for you is to be able
--to love reading or at least not hate it,
--not dread it, and be able to get more out
--of it. So, benefits of speed reading also,
--if you're a professional working in an
--environment where you have to read lots
--of articles or lots of reports, or if you're
--a teacher and you have lots of essays to read,
--obviously if you're reading, if you're
--grading essays for punctuation or even
--spelling and stuff, you're going to have
--to go slower, but if you're reading for
--content? You can zip through it much
--faster if you learn how to speed read,
--which means you have way more time
--in your day to do, you know, living.
--Everything besides that work!
--So, there's definitely some good benefits
--of speed reading.
--What we need to take this class is
--a paperback or hardcover book that you
--want to read, later we'll talk about how
--to use this same technique on an e-reader
--but you want to start with a paperback
--or a hardcover, you need a pencil or an
--erasable pen, or you can also use sticky notes
--like little tab things, you also need 15
--to 45 minutes a day to practice. I mean,
--you can skip a day, that's fine, I actually
--skipped months at one point, but whenever
--you read you want to be using your hands,
--so, practicing, and especially in the
--beginning you want to be doing 15 minutes
--a day for at least a couple weeks. You're
--going to need the class packet, either
--printed off or you can keep like a pdf file
--on your computer or on your tablet, or
--use a notebook and take notes, and use
--it that way. You also need a timer and
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--a calculator, which, if you have a smartphone,

--you already have both those things, if you
--don't have a smartphone, if you have a
--stupid phone, you'll probably want a timer
--and a calculator.
--Alright, so, today my goals are to teach
--you how to read fast and to understand what
--you are reading when you read faster.
--So the first thing we're going to do is
--we're going to calculate your book's words
--per line and I'm going to show you how to
--do that with my book, which is
--So, what I want you to do now is open up
--your books, doesn't have to be any
--particular page, it just has to have lines
--going all the way across margin to margin.
--You need to pick a page that has a line
--that goes from the first margin all the way
--to the end margin and what you're going to
--do is you're going to count every single
--character in that line, including spaces.
--So, my number is 70. I've got to divide 70
--by 6 and I don't have my smartphone
--with me so I'm going to do it on the board.
--So divide whatever you have by 6, 'cause
--6 is how many letters the average word
--in the English language has. I'm going to
--round up from 11.67 to 12 just to make it
--easy on myself. I'm going to say it's 12
--words per line.
--But if you want to, you can also, if you
--have two digits over you can leave those
--digits and multiply by that, so it'll be
--more accurate.
--Okay, so does everybody have their
--words per line? "71...er, not words, sorry,"
--Characters per line? "Yeah." Words per line
--you get when you divide by six.
--I'm going to write that too, my little
--acronym, Words Per Line, is 12.
--What was yours, Kisha?
--"11.63" I guess Ok, so we all have about 11
--in our books. Cool. "I'm rounding up to 12."
--Yeah, I'm going with 12 'cause who wants
--to use decimals? Raise your hand if you
--love decimals! I see no hands in the air.
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--We'll all be 12! "There you go!"

--Before we do our first timing, you want
--to actually be reading your normal speed,
--you want to be reading for a few minutes
--so I'm actually going to be using my
--smartphone, use my timer, to - you guys
--go ahead and read wherever you are in
--your book for a few minutes, and when I
--tell you, you're going to stop and mark
--the last line that you read with a pencil
--really lightly so you can erase it later
--and then we'll do the first timing. Ok?
--So, go ahead and read for a few minutes
--and I'll tell you when to stop.
--Alright.
--For the first reading what you are going
--to do is just read at your normal speed
--from that line that you just marked until
--my alarm goes off and you mark the
--last line that you read. A line counts as
--three words or more.
--I'll tell you when to start reading.
--Just one second...
--On your mark, get set, oops...couple
--more minutes...I'm trying to...and read!
--Okay, mark the last line that you read.
--and count how many lines are between
--those two marks.
--Your first speed reading goal is not 1000
--words per minute. Your first goal is just
--going to be 50 to 100 from where you are
--now. Where are you guys now? "372."
--Excellent. How about you? "120." 120. Okay.
--So, the first goal for you, your first big
--goal, is 250. and the reason that is
--is because people speak - not me, I speak
--really fast - most people speak about 250
--words per minute. So if you are reading
--slower than that, it's like you're reading
--watching a movie in slow motion.
--It's really boring, you forget what happened
--because you already forgot by the time you
--get to the end of the words, you know,
--you finish your paragraph, and you're like,
--what did I just read? You know, so,
--just, the technique I'm about to teach you
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--is going to help you increase your speed

--already. Probably before we leave, you are
--going to be at 250, but we'll see. But, if
--you make it up to 170, you're doing a
--great job. Then you just keep practicing
--and you will get up to 250.
--Okay, so 372 is really close to where I
--started when I first learned this technique.
--I went from 360 to 540 in the first hour
--of practice. "Wow!" So, you can do that too!
--Are you ready to see how? "YES!"
--There's 3 slow habits that we're going to
--overcome this week. The first one I wrote
--about in your pamphlet is subvocalizing,
--which is reading words aloud under your
--breath or your mouth mumbles the words
--when you are reading them, which is something
--we naturally do when reading hard material.
--Like, when you're reading a textbook, and
--you're like, what the hell is that word?
--You're trying to sound it out, you know,
--that makes sense. But when you always use
--subvocalization, it slows you down, because
--your mouth can not move nearly as fast as
--your brain can, even though mine has tried.
--When mine does that, people look at me like,
--I'm just like, did I read to fast again,
--or speak too fast? Yeah, I've got a
--problem with that. I talk really fast
--in a second. So, the other two things we're
--going to do are directly addressed by
--the technique I'm about to teach you,
--which is reading word-by-word, you know,
--we grew up learning to read one letter
--at a time first, then one word at a time,
--and unless you teach yourself different,
--that's how you always read. You read
--by word. When you read aloud, you know
--you notice a difference between people who
--read fluidly, fluently as opposed to
--people who read aloud that sound like a
--monotone, like Ben Stein, versus, you know,
--a professional voice actor, you know, so
--people who read more fluently have more
--phrasing, they read by phrase, and not so
--much word by word. But most of us weren't
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--really taught how to do that. A lot of

--times our teachers didn't know how to do
--that. Unfortunately. For everybody.
--But we're going to learn how to read
--phrase by phrase and even more than that
--with this technique. And the second thing,
--the third thing...subvocalization, reading
--word by word, and the jerky eye movement
--that our eyes make when we're reading
--word by word, like, your eyes go word,
--word, word, word, word, you know, it's just
--really inefficient, it slows everything
--down. So you read super fast reading like
--that, I think maybe 372-400 is about as
--high as you can go reading word by word.
--That's my theory, anyway.
--How fast do you want to read? I mean,
--I don't think anybody...reading over a
--thousand words per minute is really, like...
--'Everybody should be able to read 1000
--words per minute' would be kind of a
silly thing to say. You know? 500 words

--per minute is a great reading speed.

--You might not want to go faster than that.
--But anywhere between 500 and 1000, I think
--is a perfect goal range that is easy to
--get to. My high school kids and my middle
--school kids, I had a lot of them get up to
--1000 words per minute.
--"What about kids with learning disabilities?"
--That's a totally different story. It depends
--on the disability, it depends on...
--some people, because we're going to be
--using our fingers in this, with this
--technique, we'll be using our fingers to
--train our eyes how to move, and to help
--stay focussed on the page, some might
--benefit from that, but, I'm not sure how...
--dyslexia would be affected, I don't have
--training in that. But, it's worth a try.
--If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
--If it does work, yay! Alright...
--Ok, so we're going to use our hands to
--train our eyes. The thing I keep saying
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--over and over again is 'Smooth Zip.'

--'Cause what we're going to do is we're
--going to move our fingers...we're going to
--first off align at least two fingers,
--minimum of two, preferably three, or even
--four if you can make your arms shaped
--like that somehow, mine don't do that.
--But I use three, generally. So I put three
--fingers in a line underneath the words
--I'm going to read, and I move smoothly
--across the page. It doesn't have to be
--super fast, but it does need to be smooth.
--So you can start off going as slow as you
--need to go, and when you get to the end
--of the line, your goal is to zip down to
--the next line. You don't want to pick up
--your hand and place it because that wastes
--energy and wastes time. So you do a smooth
--motion across the page, and then zip down
--to the next line, and smooth underneath
--that line, and zip down.
--Move your fingers smoothly across the line
--until you get to the end of it, and then
--you zip down to the next line because you
--don't need to go back just as slowly, or
--just the same speed, because you're not
--reading backwards. So you go, zip, smooth
--zip, whoops, it's hard to do this with a
--camera. Smooth, zip, smooth, zip.
--And you'll notice that when you're having
--three fingers underneath the words, that
--you're seeing 1 2 3 4 5 6 words about my
--fingers instead of one word at a time. So,
--when I'm reading, i'm seeing (reads really fast)
--In my head my voice does speed up, because
--that's what I do, instead of - some people,
--some books recommend that if you want
--to speed read, to take the voice out,
--but it's really hard to not hear your voice.
--Especially when you've been doing it for
--30 or 40 or 50 years, you know, how do
--you just block out your voice? I do find
--that the faster I read, the voice just
--fades away, and then it just becomes
--pictures and sounds and scents and, you
--know, whatever, but, I just make my voice
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--speed up in my head. Just make it talk

--faster, make my voice out loud talk faster
--then, if I'm reading this way. "Did you
--talk this fast before you learned
--to speed read?" Unfortunately.
--But I do think speed reading made me even
--faster. Which is really hard when I'm
--teaching a bunch of kids, and I'm really
--excited, like 'YAY I can't wait to teach
--you guys this awesome stuff!' and they're
--like...'does she speak English?' You know?
--So if I do speak too fast, please,
--let me know. And I'll slow down. I'll try,
--anyway. Alright, so, it looks like this.
--You line up three fingers so it looks like
--this, two is okay, and two is easier in
--things that have small columns like in
--this, this book is, might be more narrow,
--so you might go for two fingers instead
--of three just because you move faster
--that way. But I'll show you something else
--later on about that. But three fingers
--generally. So move just like this, smoothly
--across the board, then zip down. I mean
--the page, not the board. I guess you
--could try doing this on your computer
--screen but I don't think it would be very
--easy. So you see, it goes like that,
--and with the other hand you're holding
--down the page, or, you can alternate hands.
--I often alternate hands when both my hands
--are free. I'll read the left page with my
--left hand and the right page with my right
--hand. That might be...you might not be
--that coordinated, you might just want to
--use your writing hand, and that's cool too.
--So you want to hold the book as flat as
--you can, so it doesn't try to close on you
--while you're trying to read. And put your
--fingers there and just start moving it
--smoothly across the page. You don't want
--your fingers to be jerking. If your fingers
--are jerking across the page, that means
--that you're pressing too hard.
--Your fingers should just be gliding,
--just barely, very lightly, going across
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--the page. So I'm going to let you guys

--go ahead and practice that, and we'll talk
--more about some other issues you might
--be having. So I'm going to let you practice
--for about ten minutes.
--Alright. It's been ten minutes of practice
--so far.
--"I feel like I'm listening to the TV."
--"I can hear the words." Perfect. "You..."
--"You didn't, you weren't able to before?"
--"No, I felt like I was talking to myself."
--"I feel...as I'm doing this I feel like..."
--"...I'm listening to a conversation."
--Perfect! "You've never felt that before?!"
--"Wow..."
--"It's great because I feel the flow, like,"
--"as I'm reading it, I feel like my eyes..."
--"just glide over it." Perfect. That's what
--you want to happen.
--Don't worry, you'll get used to it.
--It takes about 45 minutes for your hands
--to get used to it.
--So let's talk about some common problems.
--Then I'll let you guys read a bit more
--before we do our second timing. Ok, so
--First, tell me what problems you were having
--while you were trying. "Holding that position."
--Yeah, it feels awkward, like, I remember
--the first time I did it, I had to, like,
--make my fingers do this weird, awkward
--thing. "That's what I'm talking about." Which
--I can do it now fine, but when I first
--started off, what I ended up doing was
--curving them like a C and reading over
--the top of my fingers, which was kind of
--like reading over a staircase, but it was
--more comfortable than making my fingers
--do the weird pyramid thing. But now the
--pyramid's fine, I'm totally comfortable
--with it. So, the important thing is that
--you have a line underneath the words
--you are reading. So if it's your fingers
--or your fingernails, either works fine.
--But it takes about 45 minutes of practice
--to make it comfortable, and you can do
--that in 15 minute increments, like 15
9

--minutes here, 15 minutes there, you know.

--And after about 45 minutes total practice,
--it won't feel so weird. What about you,
--Britt, what were you having problems with?
--"Comprehension, because I was aware that
--this is how to do it faster, so i was trying
--to make myself do it faster, and instead
--of just reading at my regular pace using the
--finger movement, I was trying to, like,
--speed myself up, and then I realized that
--I didn't know what I had just read." Ok.
--That's totally normal. You also had a bit
--of comprehension issues because you just
--learned this finger technique, so it's going
--to reduce your comprehension a little bit,
--but not like a lot. Just resist.
--Slower, smooth pace. The important thing
--is the smooth motion right now. Once you
--master it, you will naturally get faster.
--And one of the things that I'm going to
--have you do when we do the second timing
--is you're going to have - basically, read
--a little faster than you're comfortable.
--But only a little bit. You want to be a
--little bit faster than you are comfortable,
--not like so much faster that you can't
--understand what you're reading. And then
--what happens is when you do that, you get
--more comfortable at that speed, and then
--you push a little bit faster, and you
--get comfortable with that speed, and
--every single time you can actually --it's like a habit, you develop a habit of
--speeding up your reading every time you
--read, and so you end up reading at
--obnoxious speeds like I am. Or, maybe less,
--depending. I read every day, so, you know,
--it depends how often you practice.
--So, discomfort is totally normal.
--One of the common issues also is jerky
--fingers, like you're pressing - if, when
--we're reading sometimes we press too hard
--on the page and then your fingers jerk
--because you're pressing too hard.
--Neither one of you were doing that, so,
--yay, good job. Some people want to use
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--a pencil or a card to read, since we have

--pencils to mark the book with. "or a bookmark"
--yeah, or something like that. And that
--doesn't train your eyes how to move, so
--it won't help you read faster. It might
--help you focus, if you're trying because
--there are too many words on the page, I've
--had people tell me that, but if you're
--going to do that, I'd use like an index
--card or something like that to block all
--the words, but use your fingers to guide
--your eyes. Alright, so you'd probably be
--using two hands, moving it down the page,
--switch pages, and that's totally fine, but
--don't try, don't try to speed up your
--reading using a pencil or a card because
--it won't work. You're biologically
--programmed to follow your eyes with - your
--fingers with your eyes, we're not
--biologically programmed to use pencils or
--index cards, they haven't been around
--long enough. Some people have a problem
--with picking up their hand. I don't think
--either one of you were doing that, but
--when some people get to the end of the line,
--they pick up their hand and place it
--instead of zipping it, and that wastes,
--like I said before, that wastes energy.
--But you guys weren't doing that.
--It also wastes time, but you weren't doing it.
--so it's ok. Oh, and forgetting to use your
--hands! Like, when you're going to be practicing
--at home and I'm not there to say 'Hey,'
--'do that, hey, use your fingers.' You know,
--you're going to forget to use your hands,
--so you just have to remind yourself, which
--is, if you have a really hard time remembering
--to do it, i would set my alarm for 15 minutes
--and purposely 'I'm using my fingers for
--these 15 minutes.' and every time you do
--that you're going to get more used to it.
--and then eventually you won't need the
--timer anymore, you'll just do it naturally.
--"Another issue that I had was the, finding"
--"the proper level. Like, this was too low,"
--"this was too high. I felt like I needed"
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--"to stand up, like I felt like that would"

--"be a great..." This was perfect for me.
--"No wonder you had...!" But yeah, it does
--help. You need to find good, the most
--comfortable position for you, so when you
--read at home it's probably not at a table
--and chair, right? When you're reading at
--home, what are you doing? "Sitting in a"
--"chair, or I don't know, in the bed."
--What you can do is if the leg is too low,
--you can put a pillow on top of your leg,
--the book on top of the pillow, to raise
--it up. "But I felt like I, like if I'm in"
--"bed, and I have like a, well usually I don't"
--"usually, I'm like this, so I don't know..."
--You can still use your hands.
--"I don't have." You don't have to hold --let me see your book. You will adapt.
--What you'll end up doing is holding it with
--your fingers and use your hands like this.
--"oh! ok, I can do it like that?"
--Which is what I do too. Because I don't
--usually sit, stand at a table, or sit
--at a table and read. Usually I'm in my
--chair going... "Right, right, so that"
--"that makes me feel better." Yeah, it's...
--when you're in a classroom, what are you
--going to do? But when you're at home,
--your reading for pleasure or whatever you
--are reading for, all you do is find the
--right position for you. But heavy books
--like this, what I end up doing is not using
--my fingers because I can't hold the book
--and use my fingers at the same time, but
--that's ok. Because I still read really
--fast without my fingers. And you will too.
--The faster you read with your fingers, the
--faster you'll read without them. and you'll
--find that you'll be reading a webpage and
--be like, why is it not scrolling fast enough
--for me to read? "oh my gosh." Which can be
--annoying. But that's ok, because you know.
--"Now do you find you still have to slow"
--"down when it comes to words you're not"
--"familiar with so you can use a dictionary?"
--Yes! Definitely! You have to. "Ok."
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--I mean, there's times you read super fast

--and times you read slower, and one of the
--times you read super fast is when you are
--doing it for pleasure, when you already
--know the material, you've read it before,
--you're reviewing something you've already
--read, just like when, you know how when
--you know how you skim things sometimes
--to refresh your memory before go to talk
--about something, or before you read the
--next book, for example? Skimming is a form
--of speed reading, with just low comprehension.
--So when you skim, you're speed reading
--with low comprehension. And eventually
--you're going to get to - this is, that's how
--fast I used to skim. So now I comprehend at
--that speed if it's a book I've already read.
--Ok, let's talk about how to improve comprehension.
--The way we memorize things is we repeat
--them to ourselves over and over again.
--Right, that's how we memorize things when
--we're a kid, like the times tables in
--elementary school. Recapping is short for
--recapitulation, but what it means is
--repeating whatever was just said
--in your own words. So if you're reading
--something and you're having the hardest
--time comprehending it, you're not stopping
--often enough to repeat, or to say it again
--to yourself in your own words and relate
--it to your own experience. So you want to
--do that out loud if you can, whisper it to
--yourself. When you whisper out loud to
--yourself, you're creating an aural memory,
--a vocal memory, like a speaking memory, as
--well as a thinking memory, so you remember
--much better if you do that than if you are
--just doing it in your head because that's
--just thinking memory, and there's more
--about that in your notes. So, recapping to
--yourself or to somebody else helps improve
--your comprehension and how often you do
--that depends on how dense the material is.
--If it's a textbook, you might want to do it
--after every paragraph if it's really hard,
--like if I was doing a textbook on mechanics
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--every other sentence...what? what did I

--just read? You know, but if it's a biology
--book, oh, I got this, end of chapter recap.
--you know? Because I like biology.
--Vocabulary. You definitely want to keep
--a running list of vocabulary because it's
--the only way to improve your vocabulary
--is to learn the new words when you come
--across them, and there's 400,000 words in
--the English language, but only about 100,000
--that are commonly used, so unless you're
--reading 18th century literature, most of
--the words you're learning are going to
--be in everyday conversation, you know.
--You'll see them, like once you've learned
--them, you'll see them everywhere. You'll
--see them in the newspaper clippings,
--you'll see them on the computer, on the news,
--whatever, because once you...when you don't
--know something, you're not familiar with it
--our brain just pretends it's not there.
--It's like, 'that doesn't exist!' You know.
--'that word isn't real.' You know. But when
--you do know it, especially when you just
--learned it, you'll start seeing it everywhere
--going, 'wow, how could I have not noticed
--this word?!' You know, so definitely keep
--a vocab list going. you can either keep it
--in a notebook, or if you have a smartphone,
--the Evernote app is awesome, you can put
--little notes in there and keep a running
--vocabulary list right there, so - check it
--from any...Evernote goes on your computer
--and everywhere else too, so you'll always
--have the list available, and you want to have,
--one of the best ways to learn new vocabulary
--words is to find synonyms for them that you
--already know, and then just memorize the
--new word with the synonyms that mean the
--same thing. Right? So, if you just, like, say,
--let's pick a word, any word... "Commensurate"
--Commensurate. "Equal to." Right, equal to,
--and what's another, let's try to think of
--a second... "Equivalent?" Equivalent.
--Equal to. Commensurate. So you're going
--to say to yourself, 'commensurate, equal to,
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--equivalent, commensurate, equal to,'

--'equivalent, ok, what's commensurate mean?'
--'equal. ok, got it!' So, then you can move
--on with your life. Dictionary.com and
--Thesaurus.com, I actually use thesaurus.com
--more because synonyms are easier to learn
--than definitions. Sometimes you get the
--definition and it's like 30 pages long, and
--you're just like, which one do I need for this?
--you know, but if you look for the synonyms,
--you can find out which synonym would replace
--it in the sentence and makes sense, that
--helps. A lot more, I think. But, you know,
--use both and you'll totally comprehend.
--Taking notes. You guys know how to take notes.
--We all grew up being taught it in school.
--But what you can do when you're not doing
--it for school is you can add to your notes
--your interpretation, your thoughts on it,
--or questions it brings up for you, or
--ways it relates to your life, or any other
--ideas that come up while you're reading it.
--Whatever it is. And you can take notes in
--your book too, I didn't write that in the
--notes but, because it's sacrilege, but if
--it's your own book and you're writing it...
--Some books actually want you to write in
--them. I've got a great book called
--Life is a Verb, and it's a memoir/self-help
--book, which is really awesome. It's like
--what would you do if you only had 37 days
--left to live, because her father - that
--happened. So it's called 'Life is a Verb."
--and there's all these short memoir pieces
--that illustrate a lesson she's trying to
--teach her daughters about 37 things to do
--before you die, so it's pretty awesome,
--and she wants you to write in that book,
--she wants you to make little notes and
--draw doodles and stars and argue with her
--or agree with her or whatever, and she
--tells you to in the first, in the introduction
--I think it is. So I've been trying to get
--over my sacrilegious feelings of writing
--in books. I even used to feel sacrilegious
--about dog-earring pages. I was like, 'no,'
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--'don't dog-ear the pages, the poor page'

--'will rip!' you know. but yeah, I've gotten
--to the point where I can tag, or like
--I was explaining to you guys earlier about
--when you find something you want to
--highlight, you put a spot over here, in
--ink, and you flip to one of the back pages
--and draw a line where that tag is and
--write down the keyword that's going to
--help you figure out why you tagged it in
--the first place. So you can, you can do it
--with recipes too, if you're trying to find
--a recipe, and you're like, why is the chicken
--not in chicken order? I'm vegan, so I don't
--do chicken, but you know, whatever it is
--you can highlight all the chickens and
--make them 'chicken' in the back of the book.
--I might have to do that with some of my
--stuff too, like when I'm trying to find
--things I can never find, like where the
--heck is the banana bread?! Every recipe book
--has banana bread, but where's the one I want?
--So, yeah. I do tangents sometimes. Just
--so you guys know.
--Discussion is a really good way to
--improve comprehension too, even if you're
--talking to somebody who has not read the
--book. You can still talk about it with them
--and just talking about it, I mean have you
--ever had the experience of when you're
--talking to somebody about something
--and before you finish your sentence you go
--'OH MY GOD I totally get - wait, and this!'
--and people are looking you like, 'what are
--you talking about? Can we get in on that
--conversation you're having with yourself?'
--So, having a discussion with someone
--whether they've read it or not definitely
--helps make the information yours.
--and last but not least, making if fun!
--Because humans are biologically hardwired
--to learn from fun. That's why play is how
--we learn when we're kids and if you can
--turn whatever you are doing into fun
--you're an adult, you'll learn better too.
--And genius happens when you're having fun.
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--Just so you guys know.

--The best ideas come when you're in a great,
--you know, that 'OH MY GOD! LIFE IS AWESOME!'
--'DOUBLE RAINBOWS!' You know, so get yourself
--excited, make it fun, make it a challenge
--for yourself - how fast, how many words
--can I read in 15 minutes? You know, or something
--like that. As long as you're doing that,
--it'll help improve your comprehension,
--and your retention over longer periods of time.
--So, do you guys have any questions about
--anything we talked about, before your
--second timing? I covered all your questions?
--Excellent. So what we're going to do,
--I'm going to tell you one more thing
--before we do it. One thing you might
--find is when you get to about 500 words
--per minute, moving your fingers all the
--way across the page from this end to
--this end is going to make you, too slow
--for you. You'll find your eyes going down
--here while your hand is still up here.
--And when that happens, it's time to
--shorten the movement so you start about
--right here and end about right there.
--and move down. So you just do more
--in the middle of the page. And then you
--might find yourself going dodododo...
--like that. Or maybe like that one person
--going...ooo...I don't know, it might happen.
--If it happens for me, I'll probably put a
--video about it somewhere, that would be
--kind of cool. But just basically you shorten
--the movement so that your wrists move
--like this instead of going...whee...well...
--like that. Alright, so I'm going to let
--you guys read with, practicing with your
--fingers again for about three minutes, and
--then I'll tell you when to stop and mark
--your book.
--So go ahead and when you do, this time
--when you're reading I want you to push and
--read a little bit faster than you're
--comfortable, but not so much faster that
--your comprehension suffers. "ok."
--Go ahead and you can practice for about
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--3 more minutes.

--Alright then, mark the last line that you read
--with your pencil.
--I'll time you for one minute in just a
--second, so on your mark, get set, and read.
--Alright, and mark the last line that you read.
--of three or more words, and count the
--number of lines of 3 words or more between
--those marks.
--So Britt, what was your first number?
--"372." And yours was 120, right? "Yes."
--Alright, and what did you get for your
--second total? Multiply by the same number
--you did last time, so if you rounded up,
--round up this time. If you did not round up,
--don't round up this time. What'd you get?
--"340." 340. "WHOO!" Which is over 250, so yay!
--How was your comprehension? "It was good - I"
--"you know what, I found I enjoy it more,"
--"doing this." No doubt. Going 120 would be
--like listening to Ben Stein in slow motion. "yeah."
--How about you, Britt? "I feel like I was studying."
--"But now I feel like I'm reading it." Now you're
--enjoying. Good. How about you, Britt?
--"552." 552. So you already need to use
--the shorter motion I showed you. "yeah."
--Excellent, so...I can't do math in my head
--so I'm going to do it like this. I haven't
--had enough sleep for this whole math thing.
--Alright, 180 for Britt and I can do that
--math, come on Ashley, 220 for Kisha. "220!"
--Yay! So that's really good! So how do you
--guys feel about that? "Good." "I'm liking it."
--Liking it so far? Do you have anymore
--questions about how to do this? Or how to
--practice it at home? "I'm going to sit"
--"at Barnes and Noble." Yeah, yeah, I used
--to do that, I used to sit at Barnes & Noble
--and read the books - "She laughed at me"
--"because I did that!" Well, now you can do
--a whole book in 2 hours, so... "oh my gosh..."
--Go ahead and graph on your paper your
--starting number and your second number
--so you can already see the progress going
--on there. And you guys might need to, like,
--go higher than a thousand at some point.
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--But at that point you won't need a graph

--anymore, you'll just be like, I got this.
--"yeah!" "So you said mark number one?"
--Yes, for number 1, your number 1 you had 120
--so go ahead and graph 120 on there.
--You can make it a bar graph or make it a
--little dot, bars look cooler though. So 372
--for Britt, 120 for kish- Kisha. I was about
--to say Krishna. "I'll take it."
--And then your second one, 340 and 552.
--And that's after 15 minutes of practice.
--"wow" Imagine if we did the whole 45.
--"that's awesome."
--If you're doing the dots, you might
--want to draw a line between them
--just so you can see them better. "WOW Kisha!"
--Yours will look like that too!
--You went almost as high as she did, she
--just went 40 points higher than you.
--But she started off like 250 below you.
--"that's awesome."
--Aren't graphs fun? Don't you love 3rd grade?
--"Would you say this applies to your job if
--you're reading?" Yeah, if you're reading something
--that's harder, you slow down on purpose.
--But you still use your fingers, you still
--use the smooth motion. So if you're
--reading a textbook, you might use 2 fingers
--in each column and go more slowly but
--you keep the smooth motion going, and it
--helps you focus and also you read faster,
--and when you read faster, even in a textbook
--where you don't really know what you're
--reading about, like it's totally new stuff,
--you have the whole unit of information in
--your head at one time, instead of 1 sentence
--at a time...
--"Why don't, why don't we teach this in school?"
--Why don't we teach this in school?
--In middle school, you could learn to read
--like this, and imagine how different America
--would be if everybody could read, you know?
--And understand what they were reading.
--And read faster. You know. "And I, I think"
--"this is something that people would"
--"definitely benefit from because our"
19

--"society - we want everything quickly, so"

--"we could read faster as well." Yeah.
--Definitely, because there, actually, in
--your notes, there's a website called squirt.io
--that helps you read faster by, you focus
--on a red letter in the middle of it, and then
--the words like go fast by you, and if you
--if you set how fast you read, and it goes by
--that fast. You just sit there and stare at
--that one letter. And it's really cool, so
--check that out, there's some links in your
--notes and lots of explanations there in
--case you need to go over it again.
--"where did you say that was?" It's in the
--back. Let's see. Yeah, I made very detailed
--notes. The idea is the people online can
--read the notes first, then watch the video,
--then read the notes, well, if they read
--the notes again after that they will master
--this. "ah, i see, there it is." There's a
--couple other articles that might still
--be up, if they aren't then I'll have to
--fix that.

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