Some of the parents I interviewed for my website managed toteach your kids to read fast In young age. And I thought: ahow about teaching my two kids too?
Speed reading is alsosuperpower, which would like to have Bill Gates!
When a student from Nebraska asked Bill Gates and Warren Buffett about superpowers, Gates replied, "The ability to read very fast." And Buffett repeated to him, adding: "I probably spent ten years reading slowly."
Today, at the age of 32, I am learning to speed read. And I continue to wonder how my children's lives will change if I can teach them speed reading.even now, when they are only five years old.
How we canspeed up learning for our children?
We recommend trying speed reading courses with the author's Liberik technique for children from 7 to 16 years old.
Context
Average readers read at around 250 wpm in non-technical material with a typical comprehension of 60%. The best readers reach over 1000 rpm with almost 85% comprehension.
A 200 page book usually contains about 50,000 words.
If you can read 200 wpm (words per minute), it will take you 50,000/200/60 = 4.17 hours to read it.
If you can read 500 wpm, reading will take you1.67 hours .
If you or your child can read 800 wpm, reading a book will only take 1hour . This is how some children even read two or three books a day.
And all this with the same or even better understanding. Impressive, isn't it?
Why aren't more people learning to speed read?
Easy to teach
In fact, at some level, speed reading is relatively easy to master. It's very simple, well researched and documented. It's just"requires discipline.And this is most likely the reason why so few people can do it.
George Stancliffe teaches children to read quickly for 20 years:
It is at least ten times more difficult for an adult to learn speed reading than for a child. By the time you yourself have finished working your way through this process, you will be so tired that you doubt that children are even capable of learning it. (George Stancliffe)
Four keys for quick reading
George Stancliffe wrote in his 18 year old article "Teach your kids to speed read, even if you can't read fast, there isfour main keys to learningspeed reading:
- natural vision – learn more than one word at the same time
- Visualization – imagine the story as good as watching a movie
- Relax – relax by concentrating and visualizing to gain maximum understanding
- Daily practice The importance of discipline cannot be overestimated
Learning Tools (Apps)
The following tools helped me get 300 to 500 rpm (words per minute). My goal is 800 rpm, so there is still a lot of training ahead.
Disclosure: I am not remunerated for promoting these learning tools.
1. EyeQ
EyeQ is the product recommended by Ashley in my post. Speed reading is not just for adults (+ video). While EyeQ doesn't work on iPhone or iPad, the tabletop exercises are high quality.
2. Schulz tables
Our eyes have the most accurate vision in the central field of view. Anything outside of this central area looks hazy. The wider the field of view, the faster you can read. Schultz's spreadsheets (iOS app) help me expand that vision.
3. Aceleread
Acceleread is an iOS app that offers a personalized course to speed up your reading. Although it hasn't been updated in three years, it's still a perfect product.
4 Outread
Outread (iOS app) helps me read articles saved in Pocket with improved highlighting that highlights small chunks of text at a time.
For kids?
I love the apps above and use them myself butthey are not suitable for children.The reading material is too boring.
I wanteduse books that my children are most interested in and already memorized the text. I have tried several tools over the past few months but have not been satisfied with any of them.
