MERCADO DE DEUDA

How and why are your habits changing?

Some courses use machines and specialized materials to try to change your habits. We’ll briefly discuss some of these techniques and compare them to ours.

Among those we’ll discuss are the tachistoscope, controlled pacing machines, motion pictures, filmstrips, narrow-columned materials that progressively widen, flash cards and simple books with large print.

The tachistoscope is a machine that functions in some respects as a slide projector does. It flashes words quickly on a screen, acting as sort of a mechanical flash card. With it, the student can work at and practice quick recognition of letters, words and phrases. The machines range from a simple flash card design to expensive, complicated ones that have accurate timing devices for controlling the exact exposure.

The purpose of this device is twofold. First, it gives you practice in fixating more quickly, thus allowing you to approach the minimum of 1/100th of a second to see a word instead of the four times slower fixation rate of the average reader of 1/25th of a second. Theoretically, this would allow you to read 4 times faster. This machine was used during World War II to train spotters and pilots to recognize and react quickly to silhouettes of enemy planes and ships.

Its second purpose is to get the reader to see whole words and, later, phrases in a single fixation. Usually these are flashed on a screen in front of a student or class by a projection tachistoscope and followed by tests given to check comprehension. The tests are supposed to motivate the student to comprehend better.

While students may become very accurate at reading isolated words and phrases on a screen, when they turn to their books, there are no such artificial divisions among the words and phrases. There is no machine to separate the words in space and time for them. As a result, there is usually a limited benefit transferred to the actual reading process, because old habits tend to reassert themselves.

Reading is a continuous process of seeing and understanding new words in light of what you already have read. You do not glimpse single words out of context.

More importantly, it takes about 1/4th of a second for the entire process of cycling information into your short-term memory, recognizing it and having it clear out for the next batch of information. A bottleneck is created in the process if the eyes are trying to take in information faster than the mind can grasp its meaning.

It is nearly impossible to single out a portion of the whole, balanced process of reading because it is so interrelated and complex. Because this integrated relationship works primarily at the subconscious level, it is improved best when you work on the whole system in a natural setting.

As with most skills, when you wish to improve them, you should do so gradually. Trying to rush the process can lead to frustration, disappointment and failure.

Controlled reading pacers are machines designed to push you at a steady, predetermined rate. Some of the more expensive ones allow you to vary the rate with

the use of a speed control device that works like a foot pedal on a sewing machine.

Controlled pacers also come in various designs. These include slide projector types, overhead projectors, motion pictures and a simple bar shaped like a "T" pushed by a small electric motor that slides it down the page, forcing you to cover the material at the machine’s pace.

Controlled reading pacers can take up where the tachistoscopes leave off.

Some of them project line-by-line on a projection screen or a smaller TV-type screen.

They roll the print or material along at a steady rate, forcing the reader to keep up. If you fall behind this machine, you can encounter the same kind of frustration that occurs when trying to take dictation and falling hopelessly behind. Few of the machines can slow up. They do not allow you to reread when you wish, and your comprehension can falter. This is one of the difficulties with them. If the reader falls behind in comprehension, he must skip ahead or be lost.

The purpose of these mechanical pacers is twofold. They force you to read faster, and secondly, they prevent you from regressing. These are widely used in various reading improvement programs across the country. Unfortunately, they also lack much permanent carryover into the students’ actual reading materials. Why is this?

Ideas are not distributed evenly throughout written material. Sometimes one idea is spread across 10 pages, and at other times there are 10 separate ideas placed together on a single page. Some ideas are more important or are more complicated than others and must be read several times and thought through. There may be words to look up, which requires stopping. These factors all are integral to the reading process. Simply seeing words faster without understanding them is not reading. It doesn’t mean it should never be done, but it must be done in the proper context, as we shall see.

Another teaching device for improving reading speed is the use of narrow specialized materials. They usually start out with a column width of one or two words and then expand as the reader progresses.

Another words and then expand as the reader progresses.

Nar r ow Columns Nar r ow ColumnsNar r ow Columns Nar r ow Columns

These can be presented in special workbooks, on cards, in motion pictures and on filmstrips or continuous rolls. Often they present a story or article. This is another method of trying to expand the span of perception. As usually happens when you try to improve just one part of the reading process, it is not universally successful, although it too can be helpful. Newspaper columns will also help.

In this course, as you use a regulator, your eyes, directed by the brain, do these same things automatically as you begin to read faster. When you work to improve your reading as a whole, the working of each portion of the process improves in a balanced, natural fashion. Each part works much more efficiently at a subconscious

63 level to produce the conscious goal. Concentration on a part at a time doesn’t easily, effectively carry over to the whole process of reading.

This is not to say that machines and specialized materials are completely without value. In fact, they can be helpful. But the techniques used in this course perform the same functions more effectively.

Using your finger, pen or pencil as a regulator serves as a handy adjustable tool for improving reading. A few people feel it just gets in the way, but most find it tends to speed up the reading process. You are visibly conscious of the rate at which you read. Rereading becomes a conscious decision and can be done as desired. You can easily stop and look up the meanings of words and use your own material. Speeding up and slowing down are readily apparent and easily controlled. These are key factors.

As you read faster, you naturally will begin to see more with each fixation. Sub- vocalization drops out a bit at a time as your speed gradually increases. And as time goes on, you will begin to get impressions and ideas more directly. It will take work and practice, but you can do it.

Another of the keys is to read more. Read whatever interests you. Go to the library and ask the librarian for some good books in your favorite areas. Abundant help and materials are waiting for you to take advantage of them. In some cases, students have improved as much from simply reading more as they have from taking conventional speedreading courses. You’ll get the maximum benefit if you both read more and use the techniques given in this course.

Usually you will not use a regulator when reading on a computer screen.

However, you should occasionally do one of the daily drills using the computer so you can see how fast you are reading on it and drill at a faster rate.

Chapter 15