7 Best Speed Reading Books
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More articles about speed reading:
1) 10 Youtube Videos About Speed Reading;
2) 5 Brain Games For Speed Reading;
3) 7 Speed Reading Exercises.
Speed reading is a system of techniques used to improve the ability to read faster without losing comprehension. Speed reading methods include word chunking, minimizing subvocalization, blocking regression, improving working memory, and increasing visual span. Want to learn more about speed reading? We collect the list of best speed reading books, which will help you learn how to read much faster with more comprehension:
- The Speed Reading Book by Tony Buzan;
- The Evelyn Wood's Seven- Day Speed Reading and Learning Program by Stanley D. Frank;
- Breakthrough Rapid Reading by Peter Kump;
- Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention by Stanislas Dehaene;
- 10 Days to Faster Reading by The Princeton Language Institute, Abby Marks Beale;
- Train Your Brain For Success: Read Smarter, Remember More, and Break Your Own Records by Roger Seip;
- Speed Reading with the Right Brain: Learn to Read Ideas Instead of Just Words by David Butler.
1. The Speed Reading Book (Tony Buzan)
Amazon reviews:
"Tony Buzan's legacy as the world's authority on how to make your brain work better for you is fully demonstrated in this work. There are many techniques in this book that serve as the foundation for other programs on learning how to learn better! He has paved the way for all who followed. The greatest aspect of this work is the myriad of exercises that help us to experience how the brain learns better and faster. By engaging in all these exercises, we can train our minds to work more efficiently. Take the time to read the book, do the exercises, and reap the benefits!"
~ Amazon book reviewer
"Unlike myself, Tony Buzan is a genius; however, his book explains how even I could top up my IQ and learn a thing or two. Easy to follow, tapping into all learning modalities.."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"This book consists of history and the new developments of speed reading, self-tests, and exercises, mixed with short essays on physiologic aspects of reading, like left and right cortical research, the number of brain cells and their interconnections, the anatomy of eyes (including the cross-section), control of eye movements t to increase the speed and comprehension of reading (with diagrams of eyes' progression while reading).."
~ Amazon book reviewer
Book notes and quotes:
- "Definition is the companion of clarity; clarity is the guide to your goals."
- "The early development of speed reading can be traced to the beginning of the (20th) century when the publication explosion swamped readers with more than they could possibly handle at normal reading rates."
- "Modern research has shown that your eye-brain system is thousands of times more complex and powerful than had previously been estimated, and that with proper training you can quickly reap the benefits of this enormous potential."
"The Speed Reading Book" is an absolute requirement for anyone with a desire to read and learn more efficiently." Sean Adam, World Speed Reading Record Holder.
Have you ever wanted to increase your reading speed dramatically, improve your comprehension, and enhance your study and learning skills?
The Speed Reading Book, part of Tony Buzan's revolutionary 'Mind-Set' series (which includes the million-copy bestseller The Mind Map" Book), is an innovative operations manual for those who wish to achieve all of these goals and much more!
Tony Buzan is the world's leading authority on the brain and learning. His ground-breaking note-taking technique, Mind Maps, offers a route to improved study and better understanding. His million-copy selling books on the subject have achieved massive success in more than 100 countries and have been translated into 30 languages. He has lectured worldwide and acts as an advisor to numerous multi-national companies, governments, leading businesses, and international Olympic athletes. He is also President of the B Foundation, founder of the Brain, Trust Charity, the World Memory Championship, and the World Championships of the Brain.
2. The Evelyn Wood's Seven- Day Speed Reading and Learning Program (Stanley D. Frank)
Amazon reviews:
"This book doubles my reading speed every time I use it. I am glad to find a good copy of my own. (This is my 4th reading of this book). Great for students or anyone who needs to read a lot of papers quickly. Speed reading is now considered one of my most useful skills."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"I did enjoy this book and found the info very useful. It helped me as I applied the ideas from here to increase from 350 words per minute to 780 words per minute. I think I can expand a little more still."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"First bought a copy of this while in grad school. Needed to become more efficient. While I was skeptical about "speed-reading," it does actually work. This book (if you are willing to work as instructed) will get you reading faster and with better comprehension. It also includes sections on note-taking/outlining. By the first month of a semester using this program, I would have read the entire course text for that semester and have it all outlined. Made for tough mth but made for an easy rest of semesters and better grades."
~ Amazon book reviewer
Book notes and quotes:
- "John F. Kennedy, himself a very fast reader, brought teachers from Evelyn Wood into the White House to help increase the speed of top-level members of his staff."
- "Jimmy Carter actually took the course himself—and reportedly achieved a 1,200-word-per-minute reading rate, with high comprehension."
- "Wood program has helped more than two million people read faster, more efficiently, and with improved comprehension and retention."
- "I can guarantee that with serious practice, most students and parents can move up to 1,000 words per minute in only a few weeks."
A system that works, a book that keeps selling. Since 1959, the Evelyn Wood Program of Dynamic Learning has been successfully employed by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, helping them break free of the self-imposed shackles that hinder learning. By teaching us to tap the natural power of the mind, the Evelyn Wood method helps us to dramatically increase reading speed, retain more of what we hear and read, improve comprehension and develop our powers of concentration. In just minutes, you'll notice a real difference in your reading speed. In succeeding chapters of this seven-day program, you'll get the secrets of effective note-taking, find tips for instantly improving your writing, and much more.
3. Breakthrough Rapid Reading (Peter Kump)
Amazon reviews:
"This book is phenomenal! I increased my reading speed dramatically. All it takes is practice. Like with so many other activities, one must practice getting better at something. Doing the two exercises a day takes about 30 minutes."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"I always wanted to learn speed reading but couldn't understand how to do that and understand the material. Now I do- and wish I knew this during my college years! Lots of exercises, and has you repeating them almost daily. It says a 30-day course... more like two months if you follow and perform all the exercises."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"At any rate, I recommend the book. The drills are sooooo simple and effective. This is actually the first time that I'm convince that I will be a speed reader at the end of the book. After 22 years, that feels GREAT!!! "
~ Amazon book reviewer
Book notes and quotes:
- "Rapid reading is not a difficult skill to learn."
- "There are many famous people who could read extremely fast. It was said that England's Samuel Johnson could read almost as fast as he could look at the pages. While in the White House, President Theodore Roosevelt used to read a book every day before breakfast, and he occasionally read three a day. John F. Kennedy was well known for being able to read 1,200 words per minute."
The former National Director of Education for Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics presents his do-it-yourself program for increasing reading speed and boosting comprehension. This program distills fundamental principles and skills chat can be learned at home with the help of the drills and exercises provided. And because it lets readers choose their own materials and set their own pace, it's the ideal method for busy people juggling a full schedule.
Peter Kump, a rapid reading expert, has been Director of Peter Kump Reading Consultants for over twenty years. He has taught rapid reading to White House staff, corporate groups, and individuals. He lives in New York City.
4. Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention (Stanislas Dehaene)
Amazon reviews:
"I really enjoyed reading this book. This is a topic in which I am very interested. Dr. Dehaene wrote a thorough, in-depth, and compelling book. He points out that the area of the brain by which we read was a product of evolution but had evolved for an entirely different purpose other than reading. "
~ Amazon book reviewer
"Dehaene describes how an area of the temporal cortex processes the written word. This so-called 'letterbox' of the brain is situated within the left ventral visual area. All information about written words passes through this, and it is located in the same area, whatever the language of the subjects. The brain is seen as dividing its visual work into categories, with each performed by a different patch of the cortex."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"This is a fascinating resume of the latest research into how we are able to read. If you want to understand what happens in the human mind when we read and what happens when the reading goes wrong, this book provides many insights. It comes from a very Scientific angle, and some of the sections are quite dense and detailed."
~ Amazon book reviewer
Book notes and quotes:
- "Any word we read is initially funneled through the letterbox area, which plays a dominant and universal role in the recognition of writing."
- "two essential stages in reading: the orthographic filter, which accepts legal letter strings, and the semantic filter, which sorts words according to meaning."
- "neurons in the letterbox area recognize written words in less than one-fifth of a second"
-"Grainger and Whitney finally came up with the idea of open bigrams. They noted that words could be encoded not as a list of letters, but as a list of the pairs of letters they contained."
-"more frequent the bigram, the stronger the activation in the letterbox area"
-"Learning to read involves connecting two sets of brain regions that are already present in infancy: the object recognition system and the language circuit. Reading acquisition has three major phases: the pictorial stage, a brief period where children "photograph" a few words; the phonological stage, where they learn to decode graphemes into phonemes; and the orthographic stage, where word recognition becomes fast and automatic."
A renowned cognitive neuroscientist's fascinating and highly informative account of how the brain acquires reading.
How can a few black marks on a white page evoke an entire universe of sounds and meanings? In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene provides an accessible account of the brain circuitry of reading and explores what he calls the "reading paradox": Our cortex is the product of millions of years of evolution in a world without writing, so how did it adapt to recognize words? Reading in the brain describes pioneering research on how we process language, revealing the hidden logic of spelling and the existence of powerful unconscious mechanisms for decoding words of any size, case, or font.
Dehaene's research will fascinate not only readers interested in science and culture, but also educators concerned with debates on how we learn to read, and who wrestle with pathologies such as dyslexia. Like Steven Pinker, Dehaene argues that the mind is not a blank slate: Writing systems across all cultures rely on the same brain circuits, and reading is only possible insofar as it fits within the limits of a primate brain. Setting cutting-edge science in the context of cultural debate, "Reading in the brain" is an unparalleled guide to uniquely human ability.
5. 10 Days to Faster Reading (The Princeton Language Institute, Abby Marks Beale)
Amazon reviews:
"I started reading/using this book and noticed a change in my reading speed the right way. I would recommend this book to anyone from a student to a professional that needs to read for work or a person that just enjoys reading. I would recommend you purchase the book rather than the kindle version as you need to write and take notes in this book. I wish I would have read/had this book when I was in college."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"10 Days to Faster Reading was definitely worthwhile reading. I am not afraid to read and consider myself a quick reader. To my surprise, reading at my normal pace, I was only at 265 WPM. This is quite average. I know that I can read fast when I have to, but I never had any strategies to follow and found myself just thumbing through the pages, retaining no information. 10 Days introduced me to multiple methods for reading faster, a few of which seem to work well with me: using a pacer, keywords/key phrases, and previewing. My WPM is now well over 450. And that is after only ten days, with much-improved accuracy."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"What THIS book does very well gives you the tools to find out what type of reader YOU are. Then it gives several methods to try and practice that fits YOUR individual issues with reading pace and comprehension."
~ Amazon book reviewer
Book notes and quotes:
- "The road to knowledge begins with the turn of a page."
- "TEN THINGS Your Elementary School Teacher Told You AND Your Secondary School Teacher Should Have Told You NOT to Do Anymore! 1. You have to read every word. 2. You need to sound out every word aloud or in your head. 3. Don't use your hands or fingers to help read. 4. You need to completely understand everything you read. 5. You need to remember everything you read. 6. Go for quantity — the more the better. 7. Don't skim, that's cheating. 8. Don't write in your books. 9. It doesn't matter what you read as long as you read. 10. Speed is not important."
- "In the process of trying to upgrade your skills, you begin working with a new set of strategies. Ironically, instead of getting instantly better, you initially get worse. This is what I call "unlearning to relearn." However, over time, with perseverance and repetition, your skills improve."
Abby Marks Beale - America's #1 Speed Reading Expert. Jump-Start Your Reading Skills! Speed reading used to require months of training. Now you can rev up your reading in just a few minutes a day. With quizzes to determine your present reading level and exercises to introduce new skills quickly, 10 Days to Faster Reading will improve your reading comprehension, and speed as it shows you how to:
- Break the Bad Habits That Slow You Down
- Develop Your Powers of Concentration
- Cut Your Reading Time in Half
- Use Proven, Specially Designed Reading Techniques
- Boost the Power of Your Peripheral Vision
- Learn How to Scan and Skim a Written Report... And All in 10 Days!
6. Train Your Brain For Success: Read Smarter, Remember More, and Break Your Own Records (Roger Seip)
Amazon reviews:
"Really great book with actionable steps that provide almost instantaneous results. Topics include improving your memory, speed reading, being more accountable (goals, vision, setting aside two hours to plan your next two weeks, knowing you're why, identifying your values, etc.). Really enjoyed, bought two to give as gifts. The author himself is funny; he spoke at New York Life in South Florida a few weeks ago."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"Awesome awesome awesome book!!! I share this book with anyone that wants to improve their life. Implementing just one thing out of Train Your Brain for Success will change your life."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"This book has really helped me improve my career and personal life. I'm more deliberate with my day than ever before, accomplishing more than I ever expected. The reason I only gave it four stars is that there are a few odd sections on speed reading that I don't think really tie in with the rest of the book, but overall it's a really powerful read!"
~ Amazon book reviewer
Book notes and quotes:
- "more clearly, you can picture the results you want, the more likely you are to deliver the performance that produces those results."
- "You don't need to be 100 percent better to see a 100 percent improvement. You just need to be a little better. There's a concept in play here called the winning edge. It means that a small change in the right place makes a huge difference in the end result."
- "When you read, your eyes jump. Specifically, they jump four times per second."
- "Your eye span is the width of text that your eyes take in every time your eyes stop. Most people read one word per stop".
- "240 words per minute - average sixth-grade reading speed".
- "your brain thinks about seven times faster than people speak".
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7. Speed Reading with the Right Brain: Learn to Read Ideas Instead of Just Words (David Butler)
Amazon reviews:
"When I read the reviews for this book, I thought they're probably from the friends of the author. I was naturally skeptical after having read many books on speed reading. It's funny that now I'm one of the people giving it a 5-star rating, and will probably add to the skepticism."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"This is not the Evelyn Wood method repackaged. It is an entirely different method."
~ Amazon book reviewer
"A year ago, I struggled through 1-2 books per month. Today I'm reading 1-3 books a week."
~ Amazon book reviewer
Book notes and quotes:
- "you can never know how far any individual can go since reading aptitudes are as unique as basketball or bowling aptitudes."
- "What you really want is to be able to pick up a book and understand what the author is saying in the least amount of time."
- "You haven't read anything until you've comprehended it."
- "58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school. 42% of college students never read another book after college. 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year. 70% of US adults have not been to a bookstore in the last five years."
Reading happens in your brain, not your eyes. That's why reading speed only increases when you comprehend faster. This book will show you how by focusing your attention on ideas instead of words.
The first realistic approach to speed-reading: "speed-comprehension".
A unique system of specially-formatted speed reading exercises makes it easy for you to read complete phrases at a time, which allows you to concentrate on more significant ideas instead of just words, which in turn, will enable you to apply the unique visual and conceptual talents of the right-brain to your reading.