I have been fascinated with the topic of speed reading since learning the method in 7th grade. My interest received a boost when I found a Keystone Tachistoscope in the closet of the first elementary classroom I ever had. I used it for flash training while digging into the literature. Through 6 years in the classroom I worked with reading rate with all my 5th grade classes. Then I spent 5 years as a reading specialist in a K 12 district where I continued working with rate training, what I found there sent me back to grad school for serious research. As I was getting ready for a return to graduate school I started doing “heavy duty” reading. In one psychological book I found a description of what I was doing studying speed reading as “a socially productive rational neuroses.” I had a good laugh and thought, “Go for it!”
Currently there are a number of Americans with problems with the science of Evolution and of Climate Change. This rejection of the science involved, the scientific method and system of peer review and indeed human reason itself seems to be based on conflict with certain religious beliefs as to the outcome of life and denial of our human responsibility to care for all life on God’s earth while increased carbon dioxide is warming the earth, causing more extreme weather and acidification or the ocean which threatens a snowballing mass extinction which well could take us with it. This is not the first time science has been rejected by Americans. The science of reading is another fine example however evolution and climate change are still with us as issues and the science of reading has vanished.
The science of reading is that there are 4 types of reading. While at least 95% of us only use the first two types with only a small portion of us naturally talented enough to use the top two levels. Most of us need specific instruction and practice to master these levels, this training is best accomplished at the 6th grade level. Without this training people continue to always read as they did in 6th grade. Where this science of reading came from and how it got lost is the topic of this diary as well as a plan to return the science of reading to national awareness.
What is regarded as the first scientific experiment in reading was reported in the book Mental Evolution of Animals by John George Romanes published in 1883. Romanes was a Cambridge professor and a friend and supporter of Charles Darwin. Indeed Charles Darwin was a likely subject in this experiment which used Romanes’s Cambridge professor friends as subjects. A book was covered by a blank page of paper, the paper was removed for 20 seconds and then replaced for the subject to record what they had read. The actual text or even the name of the book was not recorded but the results were that there was a 7 to 1 difference in reading speed with the fastest readers doing a better job of reproducing the text. Indeed they did a better job even when compared to the text reproduced by the slower readers on the parts both read. From my long time teaching reading rate I would guess the slowest speed at between 100 to 125 wpm. (words per minute) and the high speed at 750 to 850 wpm. This was the first such result but every other experiment done since in which reading rates have been compared the best reading was done by the fastest readers.
In his 1897 book Problems in the Psychology of Reading, John Oscar Quantz reported his attempts to increase reading rate with his students and also reported his own reading rates for the 8 languages he read.
Then the science really took off with the 1908 book The Science and Pedagogy of Reading by Edmund Burke Huey. Huey was so fascinated by the discovery of eye movements first noticed by a French oculist named Emile Javal and published in his 1896 book “Manuel du strabisme” that he took a boat to France to meet with him. Sadly he found a now blind Javal working on a form of Braile.
Back home Huey managed to get the first accurate measurements of eye movements with a device that attached threads to a ring of plaster of Paris that went over the eye ball. His book was rediscovered by the new science of cognitive psychology begun with Ulrich Neissers 1967 book Cognitive Psychology. In the forward for the reprint of the 1908 book they were impressed both by his accuracy of measurement and the fact that he covered most issues they were concerned with then. Neisser mentioned in his book that, “Speed reading is as impossible in theory as it is common in practice.” 10 years later cognitive psychologists had a practical theory of reading types, more on that later. Huey himself probably would be better known had he not died in 1913 at the age of 43 shortly after the manuscript for his second book was lost in a house fire.
You can never see or even notice your own eye movements during reading but can easily observe them in others. There are two easy ways to do this. First put a mirror on the table next to the reader and stand behind in a position to see the reflection of at least one eye and observe as they read. The other easy way is to put a pin hole in a piece of writing and hold it in front of your face so you can see the readers eye through the pin hole. Eye movements have been recorded by many other methods as technology developed. Computers have led to research that is capable of changing the text on the screen in response to eye movements in real time.
It is easy to understand why eye movements were discovered so late. The eye is still 95% of the time. There are 3 to 4 movements each second that are preplanned by the brain to gather the information necessary for understanding. The movements are made by 2 muscles behind the eye and are ballistic in nature, in other words the brain knows what it wants to see and the eyes foveal vision is directed to a specific spot. What really amazes me is that there is ongoing processing done between each movement as the brain decides where to direct the eye next and all of this happens 3 or 4 times each second. Foveal vision is the very small portion of our vision with the most receptors we use to thread needles. As far as reading is concerned foveal vision is essential. In one experiment as the subject read a computer screen while hooked up to an eye movement monitor that would in real time replace a portion of the text with xs. By the time 11 letters had been replaced there was no comprehension. This works because there is a time after the eye moves for required processing and focusing and the light speed computer can easily beat our brain and have the letters replaced.
The important thing about eye movements is they are how humans see. Although I am concerned here with the importance of efficient eye movements in reading these eye movements are how we see everything. The eye provides roughly 4 snapshots a second all day long in the young and the old and men and women alike. About 30% of eye movements are controlled by genetics, the rest by individual nature and experience. All of our illusion of movement being seen by the eyes is due to our brains processing of those few snapshots. Many ignorant things have been said and done by those who do not understand the nature of eye movements. There was an article in Parade Magazine a few years ago about a “scientist” who was projecting words at 895 wpm on a cathode ray tube. Of course vision is not continuous so this could not work, maybe for Data on Star Trek but not for humans. When her methods were criticized, Evelyn Wood stated that her trained reader’s eyes moved too fast to be studied, which is of course nonsense since the number of fixations per second does not ever change in anyone since every human nervous system works the same way. However with training people can learn to see more with each fixation.
Evelyn got her start at the University of Utah where she claims she saw professors correcting exams at a reading rate of 50,000 words per minute. Actually correcting tests is not reading but an activity called skimming and scanning. As soon as the instructor sees the correct answer in the students writing, they are done. A man named Walter Pauk tested this rate claim. He and his students estimated the average words per page in a book and Walter then proceeded to do nothing but turn pages as fast as he could for one minute. He achieved a rate of 40,000 wpm but says he saw only one word during that minute. The fastest rate with comprehension was found by G. Harry McLaughlin in the 60s who advertised for people who could read 10,000 wpm. The best he found was an editor for Scientific American who could do around 3,500 wpm. I went to an Evelyn Wood demo in 1977, they wanted $369 for 4 weeks of 4 night training sessions as I was trying to give away a far more sophisticated method at my school 3 blocks away. They were teaching skimming and scanning and calling it speed reading. I went to another Wood demo in 1981, they still wanted $369 but had only one day of training a week for 4 weeks. The finger waving method taught by the Wood method is more of an advertising gimmick than an effective method. When something is moving in front of the eyes they go into what is called “visual pursuit” focusing on the fingertip movements and ignoring the text. Of course any comprehension achieved while inadvertently ignoring text is illusionary. The damage to comprehension with this method was revealed by a researcher who individually tested 60 students taught by Evelyn Wood herself. He asked them to read 2 pages twice the way they had been taught. Not one of those readers noticed that they had been presented 2 pages which consisted of 2 lines from story 1 then 2 lines from story 2 and so on through both pages.
The brain is a powerful language processing computer but while your PC operates at the speed of light our brains operate at the speed of nerves at 860 mph. Thus the processing takes some time as the signals from the eye go to the back of head to the occipital lobes then proceed for processing through the various language areas of the brain. This results in a phenomena called eye voice span as your eye is 6 to 8 words ahead of the word you are saying or hearing in your head. We know the brain is looking for meaning because when in experiments the meaning of a sentence is ruined by the last word the eye jumps back to the beginning of the sentence when the eye hits that word. For example, “The girl was relaxing in her bed room and took a drink of lemonade from her radio.” Because of this we know the brain is automatic in its search for meaning since the mistake was noticed well before the eye voice span would have let the reader actually hear the word.
This leads us to the subject of subvocalization. Roughly 95% of all readers hear every word they read in their head. It is like dropping a needle on a record and playing all the sounds. I know that is a dated reference but modern technology does not yet provide a better example. Another dated way of describing most peoples reading habits is as driving a Volkswagen without getting out of first gear. Some even can be observed reading silently but moving their lips anyway some to the extent of making sounds. Subvocalization is a habit and makes reading harder. Speed reading works because the basic unit of meaning in English is the sentence. Some words do not even have a clear pronunciation except in context like bow, tear or does. American schools pound phonics a practice that whole word oriented teachers find dubious. First of 3000 or so phonics rules only 18 are true 85% of the time. This may be found in Phonics in Proper Perspective by Arthur W. Heilman. Frank Smith in “Reading Without Nonsense” suggested that the sound of the word is an artifact left over after meaning has been extracted. However this would be true only for a mature reader. A word by word phonics oriented reader would come to bow and would have to guess if it was a weapon or a ribbon. A meaning oriented reader would know.
The science of reading as expressed in modern terms by the cognitive psychologist Julian Hochberg in Eye Movements and Psychological Processes 1976 has 4 types of reading.
Type one reading involves a very narrow span of recognition and is slower than normal speech. This is the type of reading used by beginners, poor readers or a good reader viewing a difficult word or selection. Like the kid in your class who was so slow that everybody groaned when it was their turn. Research shows that below 75 wpm there is no comprehension since short term memory can’t hold meaning at that speed.
Type two reading is word by word reading around 200 to 300 wpm at the speed of normal speech. Generally each word is subvocalized and the eye span is 4 to 6 letters. This is as far as most American schools go. However there are 2 levels beyond this that require specific training for most during 6th grade or later. Those two levels were discovered among the very few naturally speedy readers who lose the habit of subvocalization. My nervous system is highly tuned to spot very rapid readers like a lady I was once next to on a plane or people I find in libraries. I always ask them where they learned to read so fast and almost all were natural and did not know that other people were not that fast, very few have been taught so far.
Type three reading is phrase reading a span of 12 to 14 letters is used to identify words. Not every word is heard. I have seen type three reading at 450 wpm up to about 800 wpm. Generally 6th graders do around 450 wpm while 8th graders are the same as HS and college students at around 650 to 750 wpm.
Type four reading is purely visual reading with no subvocalization. The attention is on the meaning of what is being read. This type begins at 1000 to 1200 wpm. As people learn this type of reading they usually say that after enough practice their eyes seem to suddenly take off on their own and rapidly cover the page. The first experience of this usually does not last long as they startle out of it, but they have a far better understanding of what needs to happen and the next time is easier. About half of the students who take reading rate training will experience type 4 reading and not like it for one of two reasons. With some the eyes move over the page with no words or even ideas being conscious. Only after reading is done does the meaning come forward and this bothers some readers. Also a good number will want to have some subvocalization as in type 3 reading. Since type 3 reading is 2 or 3 times the normal rate of untrained readers, they are happy with that form of efficiency. I understand this type that prefers type 3 reading because I am one of them.
Besides the 4 types of reading they also had the concept of the mature flexible reader, a person capable of all types of reading and knowledge of when to use them. For example you have to read jokes with type 2 reading since the humor is so often based on word play which has to be heard to get. Also reading a book with dialect like “Tom Sawyer” requires type 2 reading as does reading any form of poetry. The fastest rates are useful for students to preview and review textbooks, as the skilled reader can find the parts of the text they know and the parts to pay attention to. Speed reading is also useful in reading fiction.
During the 1975 to 1977 school years I was part of a national program started by President Nixon’s administration called “The Right to Read”. We were released from our school 3 days a month for meetings. There were 4 training sessions in Michigan and they brought in PhD level educators to speak to each group in rotation. Over that time period I asked 52 PhDs about speed reading and got minor encouragement from 2 of them, the rest told me to forget it. Being a stubborn type when it comes to conventional wisdom I persisted and made speed reading the center of a program at my district for all 8th through 10th grade students. This was when I learned about type 4 reading when a 10th grade student suddenly jumped to high speed and total accuracy. I asked what happened? Up to that point I was content with the type 3 reading I had learned in 7th grade through the rate builder program in a collection of pamphlets sold as the SRA Reading Kit. (Scientific Research Associates) She told me enough that I could duplicate that speed after 2 weeks of practice. Then the moment happened that really sent me back to grad school. I picked 6 very good 6th grade students to try rate training with them. I had only done 5th grade students before then and had fairly low expectations. During the 4th training session I was in front of them in a small room watching them practice when all 6 suddenly sat up straighter and their eyes got wider as they all started reading faster together. I thought, Wow, that was easy- I gotta research the literature. The first time never lasts long since there is a startle effect so we talked about the next time and how it would be easier now that they knew what it was like. They all went on to do very well.
I was all set to return to school during the Fall of 1977 but at that time I was a male single parent. This was a time when more grandparents had custody than fathers by far and it took the retirement of a backward judge 3 years later before I could leave my state to begin formal work on my degree.
On my own I first bought the reprint of Huey’s book, which I had learned about in the first Whole Earth Catalog and dug into his sources and did further library research the hard way as this was the age of card catalogues not computers. I concentrated on the old articles using the historical method of tracking citations back. A great help was a review of over 400 articles published in 1924 by William Scott Gray 89 of those articles covered reading rate. In 1917 William Scott Gray and Clarence Truman Gray became the first PhDs in reading ever at the University of Chicago under the great Charles Judd. I know for sure that they were not brothers since they have different parents but do not know if they are cousins or unrelated. W. S. Gray’s reviews, which included articles from Germany, France and England as well as America, continued annually from 1928 into the 1960s as he was the preeminent leader in reading research until that time. These reviews take up several binders He also became head editor of the Scott Foresman Reading Texts. If you went to school in the 40s through 60s and remember Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot and Puff, William Scott Gray taught you to read. As Scott Foresman had 85% of the national reading text sales then, this is highly likely. I accumulated nearly 200 articles or books from the period before 1924.
I was very lucky to have been forced to do this on my own. When I got started on a 3 year graduate assistantship at the University of Georgia I was shocked to find a pamphlet from the International Reading Association on Speed Reading that stated that very little research on reading rate had been done before 1924. I was very glad I did not start there. This scholarship was so lacking that they missed William Scott Gray’s first of over 2 score annual reviews of reading research literature besides all the other research I had found. By then this was a mature science that even recognized 2 reading levels beyond the normal. Little has been added since John O’Brien’s 1923 book “Silent Reading” which even today remains a highly useful source of practical methods and practices. I realized that I was on my way to the most thorough review of reading rate literature ever done although thus far I am the only one impressed by this. In all I gathered over 900 books or articles on reading rate, 600 articles on eye movements and reading and another 600 on comprehension.
I had to get my research proposal past the then President of the International Reading Association Dr. Ira Aaron who then held the position as head editor for Scott Foresman Publishing formerly held by William Scott Gray and was the head of the reading department at the University of Georgia. I had been told we needed around 35 articles to get a proposal by him. I presented 99 different methods of rate training and a proposal to compare the basic methods for the first time at the most appropriate level of 6th grade. I had one group with traditional pep talk and practice, a second group with the same text but marked to aid training, a third group with the Psychotechnics Tachomatic 500, the most advanced pacing projector made and the same text, a fourth group that rotated the 3 methods and a control group that read the same material for comprehension with no effort to increase speed.
I really expected the pacing machine to have the best results since I liked the method enough to have bought my own machine but the simple method of marked text got the bests results and was the best liked method. The pacing machine I relied on for years has never been turned on again.
Since the science of reading worked so well for me you may be wondering what happened to kill the science of reading in American schools. During the 20s and 30 there was a good deal of impressive research regarding eye movements and reading rate. There is a story from the 80s where the professor was praising the work of Guy Buswell who had done analysis of 22,000 frames of film recording eye movements. When a student in this class reported this to her then retired neighbor Guy Buswell he had her deliver a letter to her professor saying that it was not 22,000 frames of film but 22,000 feet of film.
Many forms of pacing machines were developed beginning before WWI. Research got a boost when a man named Samuel Renshaw developed a successful tachistoscopic (flash training) program to train antiaircraft gunners to not shoot down American planes returning to base as enemy aircraft. This led to the development of reading rate training in every federal agency during the early 50s. The 50s was also a time that eye doctors got into reading rate training. Evelyn Wood also started in the 50s getting a major boost when President Kennedy, a natural speed reader, hired her to train his cabinet. This lead to her domination of speed reading so great that when I reviewed the available programs in 1983 and again by Google search in 2003 every program I found was a rip off of the Wood finger waving method. All with the format of pep talk and lots of practice.
By the early 50s with the federal government teaching rate training to many of its employees and using flash training methods developed by the proven vision expert Samuel Renshaw you would think that rate training would have found its way into its scientifically proper place of 6th grade and beyond. But no, it seems that a man from Austria who was considered a language expert because of his work with readability formulas decided he was an expert in reading education also and wrote a book in 1955, “Why Johnny Can’t Read.” His name was Rudolph Flesch. He knew nothing of the science of reading and promoted the phonics method as a magic answer to learning to read. There were many factual errors in the book, but he was successful in unfairly mocking one of William Scott Gray’s pre-pre-primers for the use of a sentence structure like “Oh, oh, oh, look, look, look see Spot jump.” I know the research behind this type of sentence. Gray found that while many normal children learn words with only one or just a few exposures, children at the lower end of the intelligence scale require as much as 40 exposures to learn a new word. The logic was to read and reread that form of writing to get the multiple exposures necessary faster. He was trying to teach reading to a new level of intelligence for the first time and was punished for his good deed. In no way did Gray ignore phonics. He believed in teaching roughly 100 words by sight to the point that children could get the meaning of sentences made from those known words. Then he encouraged the teaching of “sounding out” methods when new words were encountered. Gray was sensitive to the fact that a child learns to read when they realize there is something to be gotten out of reading, and that would be the meaning of what is read. The reader has to be aware of the forest as well as the trees. He knew mature readers know words by sight the same way they recognize faces, we see the whole face or word not just parts. To not emphasize the mature practice of word recognition and rely on word by word analysis constantly holds the readers development back and is doing them no favors as automatic processing is never allowed to develop. Gray had a much more mature and rounded understanding of the reading process and also saw the end goal of the mature flexible reader capable of all 4 types of reading and the knowledge of when to use each. Flesch had only the goal of promoting phonics as an end unto itself with no definition of a final goal. Phonics teachers attend only to pronunciation and ignore meaning. He did not have to do research or teach successfully, he just had to sell his book. Because Flesch won over a shallow educational establishment, discussion of the science of reading ended. In one class in graduate school I was even forbidden to mention reading rate, that is how severe the loss of science and reason has become in education. Gray died in 1960 after a horseback riding accident at the age of 75 and his reason and expertise and long legacy went with him beaten down by a pseudo scientist.
Reading fits into the category of a skilled activity and there is a psychology of skill developed by Fitts and Posner in the field of athletics. First is the cognitive stage where an understanding of what goal you want to accomplish in your training is established. Then there is the practice stage with exercises designed to achieve your goal. The last stage is that of automaticity where efforts you once had to make consciously become automatic as skill matures. Contrast that 3 stage process to the standard rate training with a pep talk and lots of practice with no goal really set. With my students at each step of the way they know how their eyes have been operating, what and why they are practicing and the expected result.
Shortly after my first breakthrough with type 4 reading the girl I thanked in my dissertation as “my student and my teacher” was in a history class where the instructor gave his class the last 10 minutes to read the next chapter. It took her about 3 minutes. When he noticed her not reading he said that he wanted her to read the chapter she told him she had and he spent the rest of the class grilling her. When she told me the story I asked how she did and she just laughed.
I ran into a chemistry major from the University of Georgia who had been in my 4 week 099R class at the start of the semester which was designed to get students ready to take the Georgia Regents Test. I asked him how it was going and he told me that now he could get ready for his chemistry class in 45 minutes, before training it took him over 2 hours.
In an adult education program I had a student who worked in the trouble shooting department of a major electronics manufacturer with a huge rack of technical manuals in front of him. He told me that after training to end subvocalization he found his eyes moving on their own to the appropriate spot as the caller described the problem.
As I was finishing my dissertation I got a call from a woman whose husband was all but accepted for a graduate program however he had to get 1,000 on the Graduate Record Exam. He had taken the test 3 times and scored 990 then 980 then 970. The timing was off for my adult education class so I only met with him twice first to explain what he had to do after finding he was a very slow reader with a lot of bad habits and no self-confidence, the second time was about test taking strategy as well as new exercises. Of course here I had the advantage of a highly motivated student and no worry about his effort. A few weeks later there was a note on my office door from him telling me thanks and that he had got a score of 1250. Now that was a magic number at the University of Georgia graduate school. With a score of 1250 or above their graduate assistantships were paid by a special fund. That gave him a certain prestige as a graduate assistant and likely would eventually land him a better job and this took 5 weeks.
During my last job at a high school as the reading specialist one year they used me as an English teacher for 8th grade classes. One of these was the top level at that school. We were using the STEP test for eighth grade but every kid in that class topped out so there was no way to retest for anything meaningful. I had the Nelson Denny Test available but that was a 9th grade through college level test. There was no 8th grade scale so I used the 9th grade scale. Using that inappropriate scale the class averaged 10.6 on the pretest and 12.3 on the posttest. Two training sessions a week for 8 weeks and the 8th grade class was ready for college, at least according to the Nelson Denny.
It is an open secret how obsessed I am with this topic. I am at least as obsessed with rate training as that guy on “Counting Cars” is with autos. I owe this to one of my favorite psychologists, Victor Frankl, he challenges each of us to “Win some small victory for mankind before throwing ourselves on the trash heap of history.” However today in searching for a link to this quote I find that he got it from Horace Mann: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Anyway the victory I have decided to pursue is bringing the science of reading to the computer age. With millions of web pages and almost everything ever written available there is no reason most people are plodding away at the same level they read in 6th grade other than educational neglect of the science of reading. Shelves of books at libraries and newspapers may vanish but as long as we have the web people will be reading. However unless things improve they will still be reading at a level appropriate for Abe Lincolns “Blab School” education not with the potential speed almost everyone is capable of with training.
I have been trying to figure out a way to reintroduce the science of reading. I spent a long time plotting a new organization to teach groups of readers and how to train more teachers before abandoning the idea. Due to long years toiling in schools and the reality of institutional lag I really never seriously thought of trying to change backward schools. I knew what I wanted to do but did not know how to go about it. All I could do was keep focused and hope I lived long enough to figure it out. I could put my ideas and instructions for practice in a book format and it probably would sell but how many would use it correctly and it would end up on the remnant rack. I’m really thinking along the lines of a program that will survive me. My interest in the use of computers for training was heightened by 2 years I spent in Korea teaching English during the late 90s at the then most wired University in Korea, King Sejong University. That was the era of 256K processors and Windows 95 but I could play anything on the computer screen on a large projection screen. However earlier after listening to one of my fellow grad students talking to a talented 6th grader about machine language I decided I only cared about computers when the words hit the screen and not the technical details of how they get there. That is a weakness I know and that is why I am looking for the right person or someone who knows the right person who sees the potential I see in this. I hope you realize that I left a lot out of this description and that I have a whole bag of tricks to help readers along which I think they ought to pay for. I am painfully aware of how Evelyn Wood has been ripped off and would like to get this method established in a way that it could be protected. At the speed of institutional lag cognitive psychology and metacognition are scheduled to benefit our students in about 2 centuries, or we could sell it to them now. Until someone invents an overnight speed reading pill this is the surest and fastest method available.
I recently had a breakthrough. I have been enjoying games on both PCH.com and GSN.com. I collect tokens on PCH and Oodles on GSN. I can look up my token and oodles history and even see all my scores from past games. I realized that this kind of record keeping could be the answer.
The main practice in my rate training method is rereading. After reading a text for the first time normally it is reread for practice with markings added to aid in what I like to call eye movement calisthenics. By knowing the length of the passage and the time for any rereading wpm goals may be set. Only 15 to 20 minutes of practice is necessary every other day (at least) for success. However when working with regular classroom students I knew better than to expect any honest practice at home so I used class time instead of relying on work ethic. I realized that with the same kind of record keeping format as the game programs and the ability to time each rereading the required practice could be insisted on to continue the program.
The ideal set up as I see it would be a program that could display reading selections with the ability to superimpose markings on the text to aid training. There should be selections of text from different levels of difficulty and the ability to scan any text into the program the reader wanted to use for practice. Automated email reminders could keep them on track although they will know going in that regular practice is required to keep receiving new lessons. As long as there are automated records of wpm kept of each rereading practice session progress can be tracked.
Being able to keep individual records of each reader’s practice means there is no limit to how many may be taught whether the program is sold to individuals or groups like school systems. A teacher is looking over each and every shoulder whether 1 or a million are on the program. This is good since the market would include anyone over the age of 6th grade who has not been trained. That would be 95% of the population. Also this method would work with any alphabetic language and could be licensed for use in a number of countries.
There would be 3 two week sections (with extra time needed if necessary). The first 2 weeks would be to gain control of the subvocalization habit. This habit which is less engrained in 6th graders than older readers is why 6th graders are easier to teach. It is more difficult for older readers to control this habit but I have had even retired people in my adult education classes that were successful. In live classes I ask them to reread the text while saying something in their head like, “one and two and three and four and one…” or “a and b and c and d and a…” The first time I ask them to do this I wait about one minute then say, “Isn’t it funny how the words crowd in among the letters?” and it always gets a laugh. The use of the letters and numbers is temporary and only used to at least partially block the inner voice until the reader can see text without hearing the words. I have had people that struggled with this effort to stop hearing everything and I have had people start to read fast as I described the process. Even one of my dissertation subjects in 6th grade immediately jumped to 1000 wpm with perfect comprehension results at every lesson. At the end of the study I told him I was surprised that he could do it so soon and he told me, “So was I.” I do believe that at least 85% of students could easily benefit by this training. There were 3 subjects in one of my groups that tested so low on the pretest that although I trained them I considered removing them from the study. However at the end those 3 made the greatest gains in their class and were very pleased with themselves by the grins on their faces.
The second two weeks are for type 3 reading between 450 wpm to around 800 wpm. Not every word is heard at this level and sometimes only parts of words are heard. Appropriate markings would be imposed over the text to aid the rereadings. These rereadings are necessary to apply pressure on the reading areas of the brain to grow new or strengthen connections. We know now that our brains are constantly changing even into old age. When the reader is confident in their ability to see whole phrases without hearing the words they are ready for the last section.
Here we are pushing to experience type 4 reading with no subvocalization and the feeling that your eyes have taken off on their own. Type 4 reading is not something that you can make yourself do, you more or less have to let yourself do it. It is a lot like those abstract prints that contain a hidden 3D image imbedded in the image that will pop out when your eyes are relaxed in a certain way. After experiencing type 4 reading each individual will have to decide whether type 4 reading is a useful tool or something that was interesting but Type 3 reading is more comfortable. I am quite happy either way and so are most of my students. There are a good number of vision conditions that could interfere with learning the process. I would think it would be a good idea to have a referral arrangement with vision specialists if the program is not working. I once told the mother of a 4th grader I thought it would be worthwhile to have her vision checked. 4 days later she came up to me and said, “Look what you made me do!” and showed me her lazy eye patch.
One of the reasons I picked the University of Georgia reading department was that they owned an eye movement recording device. Looking into it further when I actually got a chance to look at the machine, it was based on a 16mm film camera and was a useless antique. Luckily it turned out to be a good choice for other reasons. Dr. Ira Aaron, Dr. Bob Jerrolds, Dr. George Mason and Dr. Robert Aaron were all well read in the education literature I used. I doubt I could have gotten away with that study anywhere else. Dr. Mason taught the first college class ever called computers in reading and I was a member of that class. Dr. Jerrolds taught me how to write. The late Dr. Robert Aaron was the one who taught me how to organize that mass of literature and extract an argument. For those interested in the whole argument we published a brief version at the American Reading Forum available as a pdf. You will see why I use my first initial and middle name here. I actually used to use John Edwards until that name was suddenly poison. Really the name is no problem in the Dutch ghetto of West Michigan but nobody anywhere else can handle it.
I am not sure if Flesch was a right wing hit against the chance of a more educated public which of course would be bad for the right wing or had another cause like simple institutional lag. Whatever the cause it sure was effective in deep sixing reading science. Really reading rate is remarkably easy to change. I can stand in front of a group of adult readers and improve their speed by 35% by telling them one simple thing. “You do not have to hear every word in your head to understand what you read.” Hearing every word is just one of the bad habits getting in the way of the incredible language skill embedded in the language processing computer between our ears that has started to work even in the womb. Newborns in Korea respond better to the Korean language than English because they have been hearing Korean while American babies are the opposite. I know I have helped a lot of students over the years. Some even realize that, one of my dissertation subjects wrote me, “I know that with this I can learn more and get a better job.” I would like to help a lot more. For anyone who helps get these ideas out there as a computer training program I will personally come and train your entire family and anyone else you want trained. However don’t think too long, I was born late in the Roosevelt administration, Franklin not Teddy, thank you and I want to have time to get this just right before the trash heap.