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

by David Butler

The first written language was developed by the Sumerians and the Egyptians about fifty-four hundred years ago. They created it as a way to keep track of agricultural trading. This basic idea of using symbols for record keeping is what evolved into writing as we know it today.

With the introduction of consonants, simple record keeping evolved into actual writing, and human thought could now be communicated over distance and time.

What must people have thought when they discovered that just by looking at these hieroglyphs, they could hear voices in their heads? Writing must have seemed almost alive to them.

The answer is to concentrate on the ideas rather than the sounds of the words.

You’re not performing the text; you’re mentally absorbing the ideas.

readers don’t move their eyes in a smooth flow, but

The increased reading abilities observed during the tachistoscopic courses actually had little to do with the training; they were mostly due to the students being highly motivated over a period of weeks and thus being able to reach the top of their normal range.

Research on eye movement during this time found again that readers could read faster if they made fewer fixations per line of text.

Wood’s method started with what she called "push-up" drills, wherein students would read for one minute and then re-read, trying to cover more material each time.

"The reader becomes part of the story. Since the method relies upon the total idea of the thought rather than the individual words, there is no feeling of hurry or fast motion of speeded reading. The words go in fast, but they go in only to make the complete picture."

In order to read more, reading needs to evolve beyond text as sound to text as meaning.

"rely more upon the total idea of thought rather than the individual words."

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.

This is the key to moving more information through your brain faster: parceling the information into larger meaningful packages.

Although humans aren’t particularly exceptional at physical abilities, such as strength, speed, eyesight, smell, or hearing; they do excel at consciousness.

One thing you could try if you are having difficulty thinking in pictures as you read is doodling the phrases. To prompt your mind to think visually, try this exercise. Get a sheet of paper and make very quick sketches of what each phrase means to you.

These thoughts and memories are the final result and sole purpose of all this work, and allows you to categorize, organize, store, and recall what you have read.

The end result of this system is knowledge, not memorization.

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

“Concentration” is applying more mental resources to your reading; it’s thinking more about what the information means.

“Focus” is tuning out internal or external distractions in order to narrow your attention to the material at hand.

The best way to ensure a good fuel supply is through good health; so for maximum efficiency, it’s very helpful if you get proper physical exercise, nutrition, and rest.

Having more attention is being more alive. Attention is the “you” in your brain.

You could even conclude that some people are more conscious than others.

Here’s a simple trick to increase attention: pretend the reason you are reading something, is to explain it to someone else.

Improving attention depends a lot on your mindset. In order to make good progress, your mind must be rested, fit, and positive.

If you’re not sure how to relax and clear your mind, then try this. Close your eyes, and think of nothing but your breathing. Then, picture in your mind each letter of the words READ FASTER. Picture them one at a time, and imagine each one inflating and then deflating as you breathe in and then out. This exercise will accomplish two things: it will clear your mind of extraneous distractions, and it will also warm up the visualizing areas of your brain.

Comprehension depends on both the writer and the reader. It’s a connection between two minds, and therefore, the strength of both ends of this connection are vital.

we want to read faster while maintaining good comprehension. But this is looking at the process completely backwards. Comprehension is the goal of reading and the only reason for reading.

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

Conceptualizing information is still not the end of the reading process. Information that’s not attached to previous knowledge will quickly evaporate and disappear.

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 a terrific cure for boredom.

The result of good flow is that it takes the reader carefully through the information, ensuring the short-term memory is never overburdened with unsupported moments in time or unattached fragments of a scene.

See each idea because this is key to getting the right brain involved. The right brain doesn’t understand words, it understands ideas. But feed it ideas only as fast as it can handle them—no faster, but no slower.

Do you think your reading would improve if you could just stop those bad habits? Are these the habits? Subvocalizing Regression Mind-wandering

Our conscious mind pays more attention when it hears something, and spoken words also seem to stick around longer in our short-term memory.

Regression is simply going back and rereading. There are two types of regression: Backward saccades Mind-wandering

Your mind is made for thinking; it’s all it does. So, if you give it nonsense, something it doesn’t understand, or something repetitive or boring, it will likely find something else to think about.

I learned to always look where I wanted to go, not where I didn’t want to go, and the motorcycle would automatically take me where I was looking. This led to a more effective way to steer on twisting mountain roads. I would keep my eye on a section of road ahead, and that is where the bike would go.

Your mind follows your attention, whether it’s positive or negative. 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.

In this case, you wouldn’t see any real picture at all, but instead just imagine the meaning. Rather than seeing images, this type of visualizing would be more like what you do when you say, “I see what you mean.”

What you’re doing is imagining the very essence of what things are, whether these are physical or abstract. That’s why considering the essence of ideas is more than just a reading technique, but a deeper way of thinking. Visualizing what you read is thinking conceptually. This type of thinking is what lifts your reading to a higher level—and to right brain reading.

Memorizing is not conceptualizing, but the more primitive perceptualizing—the kind of thinking that animals do, or the kind of thinking we do as young children.

It probably seems like we wouldn’t be able to think if it weren’t for words. When we think about thinking, we generally think about self-talk. That’s why the power of conceptual thinking is often overlooked; because people mistake thinking with speaking. But it’s just as possible to think without speaking, as it is to speak without thinking.

The right brain may be silent, but it’s where the higher order cognitions of conceptualizing and pattern recognition take place.

This is because the act of trying to visualize forces you to remain more involved with the material,

But practice will make this skill quick and automatic so that visualizing will no longer compete so much for mental resources.

Instruction is nothing without construction.

Reading phrases is about training your mind to read in your imagination instead of in your ears, learning to use a different part of your brain and use it in a different way.