SPEED READING EVELYN WOOD SEZ: PSYCHOMOTOR
Author: H. Bernard Wechsler

We offer excerpts, commends and paraphrased quotes from *Evelyn Wood (1909-1995)

1. Q. "What is the best way to teach the kids in my high school class speed reading?"

A. Because you are a teacher I will get a bit technical, but it will all pull together
at the end. The secret word is PSYCHOMOTOR: which means thinking and
muscle-control. There are five different elements that relate
to teaching in general and speed reading in particular.

a) Discrete Psychomotor skills: the skills have a single step or just a few elements
with a clear beginning, middle and end.

b) Continuous PMS: Each step builds on the prior knowledge, and becomes
more complex up-the-ladder in sequence.

c) Closed PMS: are accomplished without interruption from the outside.

d) Open PMS: are where the outside surroundings play a part in how we use
our skills.

e) Motion-Determined Psychomotor skills: we must discover the physical effort
required. Example: how to hold, activated and manipulate their pacer during reading
strategies.

2. Q. "Could you be more specific?"

A. There are choices or combinations to make in your presentation to students

1. Cognitive explanation 2. Demonstration 3. Live practice for corrective feedback

We humans require convincing evidence of benefits before we learn a "new" way,
and especially when changing from an old, established habit. "WIIFM?" (What's
in it for me?) is our standard mind-set. It can only be satisfied by a "scale" analogy,
there are more "benefits" on one side of the proverbial scale than the time-money-
effort required on the other. We suggest "bullet", headlines like: *Imagine reading
three-books in the time it presently takes you to read a single -one, or *"Save hours
of unnecessary work - we call it the "20 minute hour".

A demonstration by the instructor an advanced student or even a video, are the
most successful way to teach. It is then followed up by the students gaining
their own "muscle-memory" through classroom and at-home practice.

It is a fact that words used to explain or convince have a value of just 10%, while
90% is added by the instructors body-language including facial and gestural cues,
posture, and teaching attitude. Of course we communicate through language, but
it cannot stop there; we must involved all three primary senses: sight, hearing and
touch. If we do not reach the students emotionally by giving them great reasons
to learn (benefits), they turn-off and doze. Finally, the instructor requires feedback
to discover if her/his presentation struck-home, and that occurs by watching how
the students manipulate their pacer when using our reading strategies.

3. Q. "Is the "hand" the only type of pacer to use to guide the students' eyes in speed
reading?"

One of my associates has created a hand-held tachistoscope, a neon-helium laser
beam called a RasterMaster. It is better than the hand or fingers, and far superior
to a moving-index card. You can check back with us for further information on this
breakthrough in a device that complements the instinct that our eyes-follow-a-moving-
object to generate speed reading.

4. Q. What about their practice sessions?"

We are embedding "temporal patterning for self-learning" by classroom and at-home
practice. My experience is exercising the 12 muscles of our eyes to active peripheral
vision for reading is best accomplished by turning the page upside down in order not
to expect comprehension and using your pacer to "skim" the sentences. Speed read
(without concern for comprehension), three-times faster than "snailing" (school-taught
reading). Spend ten minutes daily for 21 days consecutively doing this "exercise",
and we are "pumping-iron" for our eye-muscles resulting in powerful peripheral
vision to capture three to six words wide with each eye-fixation-pause, instead of
the standard college graduate's six letters wide or one-word at a time.

5. Q. "Is that upside-down exercise done only at-home or also in class?"

Both. It is a "warm-up" regimen to active our eyes and should be practiced prior
to all speed reading, and before we engage in advanced strategies. The standard
problem is that kids and adults cannot turn-off their need to obtain meaning from
their reading even when it is clear none is expected or even possible because the
page is upside-down. They are frustrated by "reading" without understanding,
even after we reiterate that it is an exercise, not "real" reading. Repeat and
explain until the students reach their comfort-zone and stop thinking that
their first-grade teacher will come back to haunt them with demerits and take
away their gold-stars for reading. This goes back to the FEAR of change and
newness, it is embedded in humans, but the resistance can be overcome.
Check out: Neophobia, Misoneism, and mutaphobia and discuss them as
natural and having survival-value. Practice and attitude overcome fear of
change and newness.

6. Q. "Massed or spaced practice?"

A. Speed reading is a permanent life-long skill that require 8 to 12 hours of
original classroom indoctrination, (massed), with 21 consecutive days of
strategy-practice in books, articles and newspapers. During class we suggest
multiple, short, 3 to 5 minute timed-readings, (practices).

7. Q. "Whole or Part-Practice?"

Each new strategy, the "Z", Backward "S", etc is a part-practice. Once the
exercise stages are completed - using the pacer, focusing our eyes obliquely through
"chunking," and at three-blank areas on each sentence, not at the words, then we
are in the whole-practice phase. Each student decides which strategy is
most comfortable, and uses it for all academic reading and rehearsal.

8. Q. "Correcting the student?"

All live-learning is a "open feedback loop" where the instructor offers a pattern
for emulation and inspects whether the student is effective in their execution.
How do they use their pacer? Do they do the "warm-ups" correctly? We observe
each major step and all the sub-steps to successful speed reading, and offer our
feedback in confirmation or corrections.

9. Q. "I understand the cognitive phase of communicate speed reading, what else?"

There are three-steps to learning a pychomotor skill:

a) Cognitive - offering the knowledge of "what" to do.

b) Associative - where students know the "how-to" of speed reading.

c) Autonomic - speed reading becomes an inbred habit, second nature and
available on demand by activated their right-brained neurocircuit. We want
them to "scan" the pages smoothly, within their own comfort-zone to
shorten their learning-curve, without constant critical analysis by their
left-brain.

10. Q. "Could you sum it all up?"

Here are the headlines:

a) Introduction - the benefits of speed reading - what they will be learning.

b) Arouse their Interest and motivate them.

c) Preview each essential strategy or skill.

d) Associate this "new" learning with past life successes in discovering the
intricacies of driving a car, riding a bike, tying a tie, word-processing and
reading and writing. We were resistant to learning in the past, felt frustrated,
yet we did master the psychomotor skills required.

e) Visualization: have the students close their eyes, seated and comfortable,
and mentally see themselves successfully speed reading. The more surrounding
details of this experience the better. Visualization plants a "pattern", and
creates a goal and objective for our mind to strive for. It is very effective.

f) Assessment: we cannot enjoy playing basketball without a hoop or hockey
without a net for scoring; we need to have feedback about our progress.
Test students at the very beginning for the "snailing" rate and comprehension,
and periodically test for improvement. The goal is to TRIPLE their reading speed
with the same comprehension or better.

g) Conclusion: Ask the students how they would teach what they have learned
in speed reading to their best-friend? How they go about it is great feedback to
our instructors and reinforces the system for the student who must analyze
their communication of learning strategies. "We learn the most when we are teaching and
assist others to learn." Finish with a review of how far the class has come in
becoming comfortable with the precepts of speed reading, their future benefits
of saving time, and reading 300% more, with improved concentration, comprehension,
and long-term memory.

That's it, be useful.
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copyright 2003
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
email: hbw@speedlearning.org
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H. Bernard Wechsler is a senior educational consultant for the SpeedLearning Institute,
affiliated with Long Island University, the Learning Annex, and NYC schools through
the Dome Project.
He is one of the founders of Evelyn Wood speed reading, graduating 2 million including
Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter.
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*H. Bernard Wechsler and the SpeedLearning Institute are NOT connected, associated
nor affiliated in any way with the present management of Evelyn Wood speed reading.
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Senior educational consultant to the Speedlearning Institute affiliated with Long Island University, the Learning Annex, and to NYC schools through the DOME Project. One of the founders of Evelyn Wood speed reading graduating 2 million, including Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter.

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