Why Speed Reading Courses Fail!
There are many courses available around the world to help you improve your reading. Most speed reading courses will show a dramatic improvement on the day, but three months down the line most students have reverted back to their original slow approach to reading. Why is this?
Limiting Beliefs
The majority of people who come on a speed reading course will have 20, 30 or 40 or more years experience using reading techniques learnt at school. These techniques will have brought ‘success’, but leave readers intrinsically tied up with a number of non-conscious limiting beliefs about how they should and should not read.
Left Brain Training
Most speed reading courses, including books and self improvement packs, bring about improvements by logical inputs and the repetition of new techniques. Both these address your ‘left-brain’ but ignore the ‘right brain’ which holds your cognitive belief system.
How We Read
With traditional, or phonetic reading, you see words and convert what you see to a sound. That sound gives you the meaning of what you are reading. However it limits your reading speed to how fast you hear the words and this has an upper limit of about 400 words per minute. (WPM)
By cutting out the ‘sound’ element you can now read as fast as you see the words giving you the potential to read at a few thousand wpm!
Reading Material
Some material should be read slowly. For example poetry and some of the classics benefit from slow reading, allowing you to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of the words as used by the author.
But this reading style does not apply to all the material you have to read. For business, or a course of study you may be undertaking, you need to get through it, pull out what is important, learn and action it as quickly as possible.
This is where ‘visual’ reading comes into its own.
Variable Reading Speeds
On our Accelerated Reading programme we change the approach to reading and engage your whole brain. We give you a range of reading speeds.
We use neuro-linguistic programming to soften some of the limiting beliefs
We improve your reading skills and match them with the reading material that you need to understand.
You will experience and leave the course with the potential to read at 1000+ WPM.
The skill remains for life.
Understanding
With traditional reading, readers understand about 55% of what they have read. On the last exercise of our Accelerated Reading course participants regularly record a comprehension exceeding 75%.
Post Course
To maintain the skills learnt during the day you will be given our Post Course Self Study Pack containing 2 CDs, 2 books and an instruction booklet. Using the pack will help you maintain the skills acquired.
Conclusions
Training needs to work on both the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
Limiting beliefs need to be addressed
Students need post course reinforcement exercises
How to join an Accelerated Reading Programme
We run our Accelerated Reading courses as one-to-one/personal tuition, as an in-company programme or as public courses open to all. For more information on our family of reading programmes please contact me direct.
There are many courses available around the world to help you improve your reading. Most speed reading courses will show a dramatic improvement on the day, but three months down the line most students have reverted back to their original slow approach to reading. Why is this?
Limiting Beliefs
The majority of people who come on a speed reading course will have 20, 30 or 40 or more years experience using reading techniques learnt at school. These techniques will have brought ‘success’, but leave readers intrinsically tied up with a number of non-conscious limiting beliefs about how they should and should not read.
Left Brain Training
Most speed reading courses, including books and self improvement packs, bring about improvements by logical inputs and the repetition of new techniques. Both these address your ‘left-brain’ but ignore the ‘right brain’ which holds your cognitive belief system.
How We Read
With traditional, or phonetic reading, you see words and convert what you see to a sound. That sound gives you the meaning of what you are reading. However it limits your reading speed to how fast you hear the words and this has an upper limit of about 400 words per minute. (WPM)
By cutting out the ‘sound’ element you can now read as fast as you see the words giving you the potential to read at a few thousand wpm!
Reading Material
Some material should be read slowly. For example poetry and some of the classics benefit from slow reading, allowing you to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of the words as used by the author.
But this reading style does not apply to all the material you have to read. For business, or a course of study you may be undertaking, you need to get through it, pull out what is important, learn and action it as quickly as possible.
This is where ‘visual’ reading comes into its own.
Variable Reading Speeds
On our Accelerated Reading programme we change the approach to reading and engage your whole brain. We give you a range of reading speeds.
We use neuro-linguistic programming to soften some of the limiting beliefs
We improve your reading skills and match them with the reading material that you need to understand.
You will experience and leave the course with the potential to read at 1000+ WPM.
The skill remains for life.
Understanding
With traditional reading, readers understand about 55% of what they have read. On the last exercise of our Accelerated Reading course participants regularly record a comprehension exceeding 75%.
Post Course
To maintain the skills learnt during the day you will be given our Post Course Self Study Pack containing 2 CDs, 2 books and an instruction booklet. Using the pack will help you maintain the skills acquired.
Conclusions
Training needs to work on both the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
Limiting beliefs need to be addressed
Students need post course reinforcement exercises
How to join an Accelerated Reading Programme
We run our Accelerated Reading courses as one-to-one/personal tuition, as an in-company programme or as public courses open to all. For more information on our family of reading programmes please contact me direct.
Regards
Paul Hobbs
Paul Hobbs
TheThinking Consultancy
