Speed Reading with the Right Brain: Learn to Read Ideas Instead of Just Words

by David Butler

To read faster you must forget about how fast you are reading and put all your attention on what you are reading.

Seeing text and recognizing words, was only the delivery process—but it wasn’t reading. The words delivered raw data to my brain, but this data wasn’t actually read until I understood it.

You haven’t read anything until you’ve comprehended it.

Instead of pushing your speed while simply trying to retain your comprehension, faster reading will come as the natural result of better comprehension. Rather than focusing on speed reading, you will be focusing on speed comprehension.

What is most important is that the phrases make sense to you and are easy to imagine.

What you really want is to be able to pick up a book and understand what the author is saying in the least amount of time.

In short, the process of reading with the right brain consists of reading each sentence not as a list of individual words or as a string of sounds, but as a set of larger ideas which can then be linked together into the complete meaning of the entire sentence; this enables you to focus on the larger conceptual nature of what you are reading rather than the individual textual components.

If something is not easy to imagine as an actual picture or scene, at least conceptualize it and think of what it means. But remember, this is a fast and fleeting process, not a ponderous one. Quickly imagine each phrase and move on.

The more you know, the easier it becomes to know more. And more knowledge is more power.

Your own personal meaning is created by the selection and significance of attributes you connect to information—these selections being based primarily on your previous knowledge and interests.

The real power of human intelligence is not in the collection of information, but in the connections of information.

3 Mind Tricks to Power-Up Your Reading Read meaningful groups of words at a time. Concentrate on whole ideas instead of words. Conceptualize the meanings of those ideas.

This can even be further shortened to simply: Conceptualize the ideas of meaningful word-groups.

So, how do you improve your comprehension? The answer is surprisingly and almost deceptively simple: by improving your thinking.

“Thinking” is what happens when data is conceptualized—when it is classified, categorized, filtered, and evaluated as to what it means to you.

The problem is that your chain of comprehension becomes broken when you skip a piece of information.

If at times you get stuck and lose concentration, stop focusing on speed. Refocus on ideas by forcing your brain to visualize. Concentrate on comprehension and the speed will come.

"Practice doesn’t make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect." —Vince Lombardi

Practice only creates habits, but these habits can be good, bad, or mediocre. Therefore, the way you practice is more important than the time you spend.

This strategy consists of three elements: Focusing on technique. Keeping attention on the goal. Getting constant feedback.

The secret to reaching higher skill levels is retaining conscious control and staying out of the autopilot mode. Consciously concentrating on technique is more effective than simply putting in more hours of practice.

Motivation is nice but results don’t come from motivation—they come from action.

Faster reading won’t lead to faster comprehension, but faster comprehension will naturally lead to faster reading.

To be an effective reader, you need to be able to rapidly and accurately process the thoughts behind the words. The thoughts are what the author wanted to communicate; the words were used only as a vehicle to communicate them.

To conceptualize information is to become truly aware of it, and what it means to us.

The difference between the time it takes to perceive text and the time it takes to conceptually process it should make it clear why speed reading has nothing to do with seeing text faster, but everything to do with thinking faster. Speed reading is really speed thinking.

The purpose of reading is not to remember words, but to assimilate ideas.

Episodic information is located in time and space. These are concrete things—things that are in the real world and can be observed.

Semantic information is outside of time and space. These are abstract things—things you can only understand as conceptual ideas and things that can only be represented as categories and connections.

The latest studies on memory have found that memories are actually altered every time they are recalled, depending on which attributes were connected and which attributes were more strongly emphasized.

Knowledge is not power—it’s only potential power. Power requires effort.

Both sides have their own important specialties, but reading only with the left brain is like squeezing information through a straw, compared to the wide river of information that the right brain can process.

And that’s the truth; speed reading is only about paying attention. But paying attention is really huge. “Attention” is your conscious mind.

So decide on your reason for reading and read with motivation. Then read aggressively by actively seeking the information, not just waiting for it to occur to you.

Be patient; don’t push your speed past your comprehension. Your goal is to read and understand the material, so concentrate on visualizing the information, and you will get there faster.

Reading is all about comprehension. Reading without comprehension is like reading with your eyes closed. Comprehension is understanding ideas being communicated.

Comprehension is the goal of reading and the only reason for reading. It’s not a part of reading to be simply maintained. What you really want to have is good comprehension… and then also have fast reading.

Pushing your speed and expecting your comprehension to catch up is like flooring the accelerator on your car and expecting your driving skills to catch up. You’d crash your car, as certainly as you would, your comprehension.

Comprehension must come first—without it, you aren’t really reading at all.

The path to faster reading is improving comprehension by conceptualizing meaning.

When information density is too low, you’ll have a tendency to begin skimming the text, which will make it harder to stay firmly connected with it. However, when information density is too high, you may be forced to slow down so much that it can then become difficult to keep the larger picture of the information in your mind.

Being aware of how information density changes and affects your comprehension will help you accommodate these changes by accepting a constantly changing reading speed.

This existing knowledge is what supplies attachment points for new related information.

This actually creates a virtuous circle: the more you know about each subject, the more interesting it becomes; and then the more interesting it becomes, the more you’ll want to know about it.

This is because it’s an effective way of increasing comprehension. When something is difficult to understand, it can be a big help to verbalize it internally—or even out loud. Verbalizing gives us two advantages: Sound makes information last longer in our short-term memory. Verbalizing uses intonations to break text into phrases.

Thinking about your bad habits only strengthens them. Instead of thinking about what you don’t want to do, think about what you do want to do.

You don’t need to concentrate on a lot of rules, tricks, and tips. You only need to concentrate on imagining the ideas.

Visualizing doesn’t interfere with thinking about what you’re reading, because it IS thinking about what you’re reading.

To read faster than speech, you need to switch to reading ideas, whether physical, metaphorical, or abstract.

Instruction is nothing without construction. Someone can give you instruction, but only you can do the construction.