SPEED READING: Eye-Distance
Author: H. Bernard Wechsler

SPEED READING: Evelyn Wood Sez: How far?

NYC Speed Reading CLASS: Sat. January 24. Details: please call
917-607-1159 to reserve a seat. Metro NYC includes L.I., Westchester, 5 Boros, N.J., and CT.

The following is in part or in whole related to quotes, excerpts, and paraphrased conversations with *Evelyn Wood (1909-1995).

Q. 1 “A student asked me about the distance to hold a book; is there a particular recommendation?”

Ans. Yes, we suggest you always read holding the text a couple of inches further
than your comfort-zone. Standard practice is between 9 to 12 inches from your
eyes – no one passed a law about it – it just grew-up that way since 3rd grade.

Q. 2 “That’s about right, and it is comfortable so why should we ask students
to purposely hold it further-away and give them one more thing to complain about?”

Ans. What happens when we change the distance between the book and our
eyes, is we gain a different prospective on the page – almost like changing the
the ‘context’ of the material. The important thing that happens is that our
Right-Brain kicks into what is for snailers – an entirely Left-Brain experience,
linear-reading across the sentence – one multisyllable at a time.

Q. 3. “Why does our Right-Brain change anything, I assumed that we always use
both hemispheres when we read?”

Snailers use 95% of their left-brain to read and comprehend in a serial-processing,
one job at a time. Speed readers use 50% of their left-brain, and 50% of their right-brain, and that changes the entire processing of meaning. Key additions are
Pattern-Recognition, and Holistic-processing, which are ‘vertical’ assimilation, using peripheral and Supra-Infra vision, in ‘addition’ to the left-brain’s ‘foveal’ or straight vision.

Using both cerebral-hemispheres (left and right brains) fifty-fifty, we are capable of ‘parallel-processing’, reading and making more rapid connections (linking),
and connecting new-ideas to our core knowledge. Speed reading permits more critical-analysis, increased comprehension, and long-term memory.

Here’s what it means in plain-English: we absorb and comprehend multiple-words
with each Eye-Fixation-Pause, instead of just one-word-at-a-time.

Q. 4 “I don’t get it – why does holding the text a couple of inches further than normal while reading – improve speed and comprehension?”

Ans. Until we decode the little squiggles-of-ink on a page (words), it is a sterile page and nothing happens. It is our brain and the Soft-Focus of our eyes that permits us to “chunk” the words in a sentence by mentally ‘dividing’ the sentence into at least ‘three-sections’. This chunking cues our brain to stop reading exclusively with our left-brain, one-multisyllable word at a time, while the soft-focus signals our right-brain to scoop-up three (3) or more words at time – holistically.

The beginning of speed reading is when we use the strategy of TRIPLE-CHUNKING, reading a sentence as if it were three-separate-phrases instead
of the standard one-word-at-a-time 3rd grade strategy.

Q. 5. “But why does getting uncomfortable by holding the material at almost
arm’s length do the trick?”

The ‘distance’ is a brain-signal that this is not business-as-usual because we are changing our FIELD-OF-VISION, and that requires a change in our Eye-Pattern-Movements. As soon as you manipulate and slightly lengthen the FOCAL-POINT of our eyes to the text, our STOPS across each sentence (Eye-Fixation-Pauses), see and interpret the material differently than usual. The new distance requires a change in eye-focus, permitting us to ‘see’ differently because we are now using a “soft-focus” instead of our standard “Tunnel-Vision”, or “hard-focus”. In a hard-focus, we are forced to read one-word at a time, while in soft-focus we can ‘chunk’ multiple-words
simultaneously and become speed readers. Is this important? Uh huh!

Try changing the distance the material is from your eyes and you will notice you get a ‘bigger’ view of the page, more conducive to speed reading because you are using your peripheral and supra-infra vision to see more on your left and right, and above and below your direct point of focus. Just continue to follow the laser-beam as it ‘overlines’, and you will notice you are getting the ‘big-picture’ instead of honing-in on each word – that is ‘holistic’ reading.

Soft-focus produces your ability to not only chunk more words with each STOP of your eyes, it improves both your comprehension and long-term memory.

Q. 6. “How long before it gets comfortable reading further-away than is natural?”

Ans. The ‘natural’ should be changed to ‘habitual’ because it would be just as
‘natural’ to read say, 15 inches away from the page, instead of the twelve-inches,
we were taught to do it in 3rd grade, if we reinforced it daily over the past years.

Our job is to turn the 15 inch distance from the material into a new neurocircuit (habit), and then that will be ‘natural’. Our experience is that after a month to six-weeks of reading a few inches further away than is comfortable, it becomes – ‘natural’.

Q. 7. “Last point of this reading strategy – why don’t I remember being taught
to hold the page nine to twelve inches from my eyes?”

Ans. It just happened in 3rd grade and you stuck with it because none of us have
any other reading strategies than what we learned back then. When you put the book flat on the desk and read, you tend to be 9 to 12 inches away. But that is ‘not’
optimal for speed reading, which increases comprehension and recall. To be a
‘snailer’, continue to use a hard-focus and tunnel-vision, and read 9 to 12 inches from your eyes; to become a speed reader increase the distance to 15 inches and use your RasterMaster laser-pacer to zoom-along with better comprehension and long-term memory.

Try this test: when you are reading a lengthy article on your computer-screen, and you begin to tire, simply move-back a few-inches beyond your
comfort-zone and notice how the change of “focal-point” to the page seizes you attention, and you actually “see” more and read faster. The same improvement
occurs on the book-page.

Q. 8. “New subject: memory – we get questions about magnifying our memory-skills for learning. What is a simple approach to improve memory?”

Ans. There are three aggressive things to do to become the ‘boss’ of your memory.
First: Freeze-it; second, ‘snap-a-pix’; and third, “link-it. Linking means asking yourself the question – “what does this new does word or phrase remind me of?”

The author of a powerful book on the brain and consciousness is Antonio
Damasio, and the title is “The Feeling of What Happens”, subtitled, “Body
and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness”. How do I remember this amidst
all the tons of stuff I read all day?

I turn to the cover of the book and look at the title – that requires my “attention,”
the first step to memory is selecting to remember a particular thing.
I “freeze” that title – focus on it, and search for a key word to remember that will
retrieve it from my long-term memory. The word “FEELING” in the title is all I need to remind me of ‘The Feeling of What Happens’. Now I make-believe my eyes
are a camera, and I snap a picture of the word – “feeling” in the title – ‘The Feeling
of What Happens.”

The last element is to make a connection in my mind with the
word ‘feeling,’ which is certainly not a new word in my vocabulary, and link it to
one of my major-senses. I wiggle my fingers as-if I were ‘feeling’ something in my
hand. I am mentally visualizing the word ‘feeling’ connected to my sense-of touch.
I have linked the word “feeling” to the title, and the entire title will be drawn from
memory when I try to recall it.
In the beginning I need the key-word ‘feeling’, after using it three or four times, “The Feeling of What Happens’, is accessed by my mind automatically because it
becomes a recall-trigger. In the beginning I mentally see my fingers wiggling as-if
‘making’ something ‘happen’, and I remember the title – The Feeling of What Happens – later it occurs in a millisecond because it is a permanent long-term
memory.

Q. 9. “And the author’s name?”

His first name I got when I ‘freezed-it”, it sounds like Tony, and that reminds me of his proper name ‘Antonio’. His last name reminds me of Damn, and the second part
recalls to mind our ‘fundament”, also called ‘posterior’, which is – “ASIO”.
That’s it – Antonio Dam-Asio, and the book title is “The Feeling of What Happens”,
and when I snapped the picture I also got something about Consciousness, body and
emotion. That’s good enough for me. Consciousness in our body and emotion comes
from, ‘The Feeling of What Happens’, by Antonio Damasio.

The three rules are: Freeze-it, Snap-it, and Make-A-Link. How do I make a ‘link”?
I ask myself the question – what does the key word or phrase remind me of?

Q. 10 “That’s easy to teach and to learn. Is the book too esoteric or can the ordinary
reader learn something from it?”

Tough, but well worth the effort. One example about memory: Dr. Damasio writes
about scientific research by Dr. James McGaugh which appeared in the Review of
Neuroscience, (12), 1989, pages 255-287, and Psychological Science, in 1990, pages
15-25, on the “Regulation of Memory Storage”.

Here’s all I want you to remember about it – in controlled experiments of memory
of ‘facts-alone’ in listening or viewing a story, compared to ‘facts’ that have a
‘High-Emotional-Content’ in the story (murder, luv, danger, conflict etc),
the results indicate we will remember much more of the story that contains ‘feelings and emotions’ – long-term. The emotional-content can be funny or heart-wrenching,
logical or totally “ridiculous”, if it has emotional-impact, we will remember it longer.

Q. 11. “I hate to say it – but so-what?”

Ans. To learn and remember new ideas, use these three steps: freeze it, snap a picture, and link-it. And to ace exams, remember what you study, or to make a dynamic presentation, including remembering a lecture – make-up a story that packs an emotional-wallop, even if you have to be creative and produce something outrageous and ridiculous. All we study, including listening to or giving a presentation, are a “story”, with a beginning, middle and end. To make your story
‘stick’ in memory, consciously add feelings and emotions.

Our brain remembers optimally by hooking-on to something that attracts our
right hemispheric – specificially our Amygdala, and that occurs with stuff that has emotional-content. Did you know that ‘love’ is caused by the neurotransmitter – ‘Dopamine’ - linking with its neuroreceptor? We are an electrochemical processing engine with consciousness, and emotion and feeling lead our brain to long-term memory and our most important decisions.

That’s it. Incorporate these significant improvements, and you will be more useful to yourself and others. Feel good, and be useful.

copyright © 2003
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
email: hbw@speedlearning.org
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H. Bernard Wechsler is a senior educational consultant to The SpeedLearning Institute, The Learning Annex, and The DOME Project. He is one of the founders
of Evelyn Wood speed reading, graduating 2 million including four U.S. Presidents.

*H. Bernard Wechsler and The SpeedLearning Institute are NOT connected, associated nor affiliated with the present management of Evelyn Wood speed reading.






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Senior educational consultant to The SpeedLearning Institute, The Learning Annex, and The Dome Project. H. Bernard Wechsler is one of the founders of Evelyn Wood speed reading, graduating 2 million, including four U.S. Presidents.

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