 | ‘No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.’ |
| Confucius |
In this chapter I will explain how to use a reading guide. A slightly apocryphal story states that speed reading pioneer Evelyn Wood stumbled upon this method, when frustrated by her own inability to read faster. While brushing off the pages of the book she had thrown down in despair, she discovered that the sweeping motion of her hand across the page caught the attention of her eyes, and helped them move more smoothly across the page.
A guide can be anything from your finger to a chopstick that gives your eye a point to follow. Use of a guide, once mastered, is one of the most important techniques in speed reading. Anne Jones, World Speed Reading Champion, says, ‘The guide makes it easier for our eyes to track across the page. It makes a huge difference to dyslexics and it is what helps me read extremely fast.’
Consider the exercise at the end of the previous chapter: did you notice that in the unguided situation your circle was very angular and misshapen? Did your eyes move more smoothly when they had something to follow?
Imagine a cricket match in which the batsman hits the ball high into the sky. The fielder relies on his ability to track the moving ball with his eyes, predicting its trajectory and getting into position to catch it. If he just saw a series of static images at various points during the ball’s flight it would be almost impossible to catch it. This is only natural. Considering evolution and our prehistoric ancestors roaming the plains, being able to follow a moving object was a vital survival skill. If the tribe was to eat, the hunters had to be able to throw a spear at a moving animal such as a wildebeest and hit it sufficiently accurately to kill it. This is a complex feat that can only be achieved if you concentrate and keep your eye on the target as it moves. As we haven’t really evolved much since prehistoric times, it makes sense that our eyes and brains are better adapted to hunting than viewing static text.
Do you already use a guide?
In my courses I always ask if anyone uses their finger or a guide to point at words whilst reading. The vast majority of people regardless of age, gender or nationality say ‘no’. However, when we investigate further it is often the case that they do in certain circumstances. Think about your reading in the following situations:
Do you ever use your finger when:
- Adding up a column of figures in your head?
- Scanning classified ads in a newspaper?
- Finding a phone number in a printed directory?
- Looking up a word in a dictionary?
- Reading stock prices in the financial pages of a newspaper?
Several of these activities have been largely replaced by internet search engines or apps. Can you think back to whether you did any of these in the past? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above questions then you are instinctively using a guide to help your eyes. It makes sense that you could use a similar technique to help you with your general reading.
Guiding is natural
Can you remember when you were at school and learning to read? Were you taught to point at the words as you read? This is very often the case until one day the teacher says, ‘Now you can read well you can take your finger away as it slows you down.’
If your eyes can follow your finger easily and you want to move your eyes faster, then of course it is far better to move your finger faster than to remove the thing that supported your early reading. It is a great shame that teachers, believing that they are acting in the best interests of the children in their care, sometimes make incorrect judgements based on old research and conventional wisdom.
Using a guide automatically assists other techniques
Cast your mind back to the four speed techniques covered in Chapter 3, namely:
- Focus on the page.
- Reduce the duration of fixations.
- Take in groups of words in meaningful chunks.
- Only move forwards and avoid backskipping.
Following a guide such as your finger assists all these elements of speed reading. If you focus on the tip of your finger and keep this on the page, then your visual focus will also remain on the page.
The faster you move your finger, the faster your eyes will move and hence the shorter your fixation times will be. Make sure that you move your finger in a fluid motion under lines. There is no need to pause and you should avoid tapping as this will be counterproductive, actually lengthening the duration of fixations. It is important to get into a steady rhythm as you move your pointer.
Try using a metronome to pace yourself. Start a little faster than you are comfortable with, making one sweep of the pointer per tick. When this speed starts to feel more natural, speed up another increment. If you find it too hard to keep up, reduce the speed until it is comfortable and then repeat the exercise of pushing yourself.
If you find your eyes moving ahead of your finger then you are moving it too slowly and can immediately speed up. With practice, over time, you will be able to read substantially faster in comfort.
Start with your pointer a little way in from the left-hand side of the page and stop a little way in from the right and you will automatically take in groups of words at the beginning and end of each line. In fact, experienced speed readers just move their pointers mainly down the middle of the page.
Of course, as long as you only move your finger forwards your eyes will only move forwards.
Initially it may feel very odd to use a pointer but, as you have probably been reading without one for the majority of your life, this is to be expected. Stick with it! You have to unlearn the old habit of letting your eyes drift and train yourself in the new habit of coordinated and deliberate eye movement. It is also possible that your comprehension may drop. The reason for this is that your concentration is split between how to read and the content of what you are reading. Once the process of reading with a guide becomes second nature so that you don’t have to think about it, your comprehension will return to the same or higher level that it was originally. This is a bit like learning to drive. When you start it seems impossibly hard to remember ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’, use of the clutch, gears, accelerator, break, indicators, windscreen wipers, headlights and being aware of other road users, all at the same time. Once you have gained experience you can drive whilst listening to the radio, operating sat-nav and conducting a conversation with a passenger or on a ‘hands-free’ mobile phone, all the time being entirely safe behind the wheel.
Once you become fairly comfortable with a guide, think back to Chapter 5 on peripheral vision. By holding the book further away you can begin to take in chunks of words above and below your central focus as well as to the left and right. It may seem nonsensical to see a line below before you have got to the end of a line you are reading. However, the brain is exceptionally good at piecing information together. You see the words you are concentrating on, you see what you have already focused on and you see what is immediately coming up. This data is combined to give meaning. Experiment moving your guide under two lines at a time. It takes a bit of practice but you may be surprised at just how much you can assimilate.
Equipment
Using your finger as a guide has one major disadvantage. This is that the rest of your hand partially covers the page. As we saw in Chapter 5, your peripheral vision can take in the whole page so covering it will hinder this process. Also, it may start to become a little uncomfortable to point at the text if you are holding the book at the correct distance of about 50 cm from your eyes.
You can guide your eyes more effectively if you use a long, slender pointer, for example, a knitting needle, chopstick, pen, pencil or even a conductor’s baton. Remember if you intend to read whilst on aeroplanes that sharp objects will probably be confiscated at security. Experiment with different colours. Some people find it easier to have a coloured tip to follow.
Pointers do not have to be restricted to printed materials. You can use a guide to read Kindles, iPads and other eBook readers. In this case take care to hold your pointer a few millimetres in front of the screen to avoid scratching it or accidentally ‘turning’ pages. If you are reading from a computer screen you can either use a physical guide or move the mouse pointer under the text. This can be controlled by a mouse, track pad or graphics tablet with stylus depending on what you feel most comfortable with.
Old-fashioned cathode ray tube computer monitors do not lend themselves to using a physical pointer as they flicker but as nearly all systems now use flat liquid crystal displays this is becoming less of an issue.
As we will be using a guide extensively for the next exercise and the rest of the book it is strongly suggested that at the end of this chapter you find a suitable pointer to try.
Q: What will people think? Doesn’t it look childish?
A: Be independent of the concerns of others. There are a lot of prejudices and social conventions surrounding reading and a major stigma associated with illiteracy, yet very few people practise effective reading strategies.
Newcomers to speed reading are sometimes afraid to be seen pointing at words with their fingers when reading in public places. If they are also holding their book at arm’s length they feel self-conscious and fear that people will think them backward or in some way mentally inferior. Just because you have a better reading strategy than the people around you doesn’t mean this should force you to abandon the most useful components of the technique. Anyway, you will have the last laugh when those peering over the tops of their newspapers see you turning the pages of your book at twice their speed.
If you carry around one chopstick in your handbag or top pocket you may also get some odd looks. I like to joke that I only have one chopstick as I am on a diet! It is easier than trying to explain speed reading to those who like to mock.
As an avid Mind Mapper (see Chapter 9), I also get some stick about always having at least ten coloured pens with me. I just smile to myself in the knowledge that I can take notes and commit them to memory much better than the average person.
American First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt expressed this very well when she said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’
Q: How can I stop my eyes moving ahead of the guide or lagging behind?
A: If your eyes are moving ahead of the guide then you are moving it too slowly. Simply speed up. You should aim to get into a steady rhythm taking roughly the same time to sweep across each line (or group of lines). As you get more comfortable with taking in groups of words in chunks you will not need to move your guide as far horizontally but will rather move more down the centre of the page with small lateral movements.
If your eyes are lagging behind the guide there are two possible reasons. First, that you are lacking in the confidence that you can keep up and are still worried about missing important things, in which case try to trust yourself and push your speed. The second possibility is that you are moving the guide too fast. In this case slow down a little and then gradually get faster. It can take a little while to get used to moving your eyes faster. Repeat the ‘relativistic’ exercise at the end of this chapter to experience faster speeds.
Q: Does use of a guide work for everyone? I find it uncomfortable.
A: It is a biological fact that the eyes naturally work better with something to follow. You have probably been reading without a guide for the majority of your life. That is a very strong habit to break. Stick with the guide. If it feels really uncomfortable, experiment with different types. Maybe a coloured pen would work better than a chopstick. Different people have their own preferences.
STOP YOUR TIMER NOW (word count 2,188)
Comprehension questions
- Name two cases where many people use a finger to guide their eyes. [2]
- What are the four techniques covered earlier that a guide can assist with? [4]
- Why is a slender pointer better than using your finger as a guide? [1]
- Name three suitable objects to use as a guide. [3]
Check your answers in Appendix 1.
Number of points × 10 = % comprehension
Calculation
| Timer reading | |
| Minutes: | |
| Seconds: | divide by 60 and add to whole minutes |
| 2,188/time = | Speed (words per minute) |
Enter your comprehension and speed in the chart in the Introduction.
The brain has an amazing ability to adapt to a situation effortlessly and without you being aware of it. This ability is called ‘the relativistic nature of the brain’. Let me explain with an analogy. Imagine you have been driving down the motorway at 70 miles per hour for several hours when suddenly you see flashing lights ahead, a sign saying that there is an accident and you have to slow down to 30mph. Without looking at the speedometer you slow down to what feels like 30 but when you look at it you are actually doing closer to 50. You have become habituated to the faster speed so that 30 feels incredibly slow. The same process can be used to help you increase your reading speed. If you move your pointer at very high speed without attempting to comprehend what your eyes are seeing, when you slow down to what feels like a fast but comfortable speed you will actually be reading faster.
Are you ready to try this?
Turn back to the beginning of this chapter and move your pointer as fast as you possibly can with your eyes following it. If a page contains 500 words, then 4 seconds a page is 7,500 words per minute. This is about 1¾ times the world record speed! It is useful to have a means of pacing yourself. Playing a very fast piece of music such as The Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, The Race by Swiss electronic band Yello or Devil’s Gallop by Charles Williams, famous as the theme tune to the radio serial Dick Barton – Special Agent are all good. Move your pointer two sweeps of a line per beat. If you get to the end of the chapter before the music stops, go back to the beginning.
Then immediately, so that you don’t have time to lose the energy, go on to Chapter 8 but this time reading with comprehension at what feels a fast but manageable speed. As with the other chapters, calculate your speed. You may be pleasantly surprised.
This exercise is a good mental warm-up before any extended piece of reading. I would recommend doing it fairly regularly as it is a quick and easy way to boost speed.