Speed reading is a very interesting technique of processing words faster than talking, but as fast as thought. Most speed reading programs today teach diffused speed reading today, but there is a way do this skill thought a healthy, Bates method way. A well-known English gentleman named Lord Macaulay was able to read thousands of words per minute.
My discussion topic is centered around this, how is one able to speed read using Bates method techniques?
gokokopelli Wrote:Speed reading is a very interesting technique of processing words faster than talking, but as fast as thought. Most speed reading programs today teach diffused speed reading today, but there is a way do this skill thought a healthy, Bates method way. Â A well-known English gentleman named Lord Macaulay was able to read thousands of words per minute.
My discussion topic is centered around this, how is one able to speed read using Bates method techniques?
Well, if you can shift your eyes fast enough with no strain, then you just read like normal while picking up the pace.
However, I have yet to learn of any way in which one can speed read without causing strain. In fact, I think a speed reading course was a contributing factor for two pupils having to get glasses. They each read at over 30,000 words per minute in front of my own eyes (I was in that class), and the teacher even said for them to not try to go faster because (surprise) they would get headaches. Hmmm. Also, the technique was entirely based on a faulty view of seeing.
The teacher said as an example of what she was talking about, if you look at a tree, you don't see a leaf and then go over the whole tree a leaf at a time, you take in the entire tree at once (eccentric fixation). So, when speed reading, you don't scan the different parts of the letter, you look at the page and grab what you can, which for those over 1,000 words per minute, was at least 50%, one person could even quote verbatim (not in this class) everything on each page.
What's central fixation? Looking at one point and scanning via clicking onto each part of the scenery looking at details. How do we improve vision? Central fixation, NOT eccentric fixation.
Both of the pupils I spoke of early had normal sight at that time. Within 6 months, one had developed myopia, and the other hyperopia. There may have been other factors, but I think that this was a very real contributing factor.
Again, if you can prove me wrong by showing me a method using central fixation, then great! But for now, I'm only using that speed reading ability when mandatory.
To this day I still attribute a speed reading class in freshman year as the main catalyst of myopia for me. Their techniques were just that - essentially reduced shifting/staring, diffusing your vision at the nearpoint in order to absorb more words in a glance. Sure, people do benefit from it, because at the near point, you can strain this way and STILL see quite well. And you may not even notice the strain it's producing..... until you start to notice things in the distance loose their sharpness. The same eccentric-fixation habit that you develop at the nearpoint doesn't work with distant objects, where central-fixation is essential. It probably doesn't even have to be picked up from a formal speed reading class, many avid readers probably develop similar habits because they just trained themselves to read very quickly, but unknowingly in an eccentric manner. Nobody teachers children or adults HOW they should look at printed letters, it's assumed that everyone does it the same. I never remember a teacher instructing me, or any other student, "now employing central fixation, read out loud to the class the last paragraph..." We're rewarded for comprehension, and speed. It doesn't seem to matter what we're doing to our eyes.
Bates' example of Lord Macauley was a criticism of the way speed reading was being taught in the schools, and a demonstration of the benefits of employing central fixation, even at the near point. Bates states that through his training, some of his patients were able to read as fast as Lord Macauley. They accomplished this by way of learning central fixation, and imagination of the halos. Shifting at those kinds of speeds requires it to be done primarily on an unconscious level, because it's impossible to shift as such consciously. So the better you can master central fixation, and imagination of the halos, the better your reading speed will fare (as well as your sight for many other things).
