The Internet is a new continent where the mapsare constantly changing. What was a small streambecomes a roaring river. What was a desert becomesa lush green valley.To keep up with the changing landscape of theInternet you must read. And the best place to readabout new developments on the Internet is inNewsletters or Ezines.But you may not be reading efficiently.Did you know that most of us use only 4% to 10% of our mental abilities? Speed reading is not just about reading faster; it's about learning to use much more of the extraordinarypowers of the Mind.When you read, are you aware of an inner voice that follows the words as your eyes move across the pageor the computer screen? This inner voice is called'subvocalization'. You probably experience it as aslight movement in the tongue or throat region. Aslong as you subvocalize, you limit your reading tothe speed of normal speech, to about 300 w.p.m.The Mind is capable of thinking much faster thanthat. So when you subvocalize, you're literallyholding back your mind. Try this exercise:As you read, count to yourself, silently, from oneto ten. Or, repeat the sound 'Eee', 'Eee', 'Eee'.It will be impossible to do this at the same timeas subvocalizing, so this is an excellent way ofbreaking the habit of subvocalization.As you do this exercise, you'll become awarethat you're no longer processing the words in thetongue hroat region but in an area called 'thoughtstream' that you experience in the top of your head. Thought stream moves much faster thansubvocalization. And that's why people whosubvocalize often have comprehension problems. There's a mismatch between reading speed andthinking speed. The Mind is constantly racingahead of the inner voice and so it gets bored.You experience this as an inability to hold yourattention on what you're reading. You have toback-skip words, or read the same line twice.As your reading speed catches up with your thinkingspeed, reading becomes much less tiring and yourcomprehension improves.Once you've got a feeling for reading in 'thoughtstream', the next thing to do is speed up your eyemovements. This will also help break the habit ofsubvocalization, since your eyes will be movingfaster than you can possibly subvocalize.Your eyes move across the written page in a seriesof quick jumps. Between each jump there's a stoplasting a fraction of second, called a 'fixation'.The fixation is when the eye actually takes in thewritten word.The untrained eye takes about a quarter of a secondat each fixation, and takes in 2 or 3 words perfixation.By speeding up you eye movements, you'll learnto make fewer fixations per line and take in morewords per fixation.Try this exercise:If you use a glass 'anti-glare' screen, draw 2vertical lines in felt-tip, 5 cms apart, so that youhave a strip 5 cms wide located over the middleof the text you are reading.Now move your eyes in a 'Z' pattern down thiscentral strip, at a speed faster slightly fasterthan is comfortable.Because your Mind is not reading each word, itis forced to 'fill in the gaps'. This engages muchmore of the Mind, since it has to build associationsand patterns in the written material. This in turnleads to greater comprehension and increasedmemory of what was read.This technique takes advantage of the fact thatmuch of written English is highly redundant; a lotof words can be skipped without any loss of meaning.When your eyes move down a central strip of the text,you also engage much more of your peripheral vision.And that in turn brings the right hemisphere of thebrain into the reading process. You make much moreuse of the right-brain's ability to synthesize and buildrelationships within the material.So speed reading is not just about reading faster;it also allows you to access much more of the brainand thereby increases your comprehension andcreativity.For an excellent, free, speed-reading course, visit:- The Speed Reading Coursehttp://www.trans4mind.u-net.com/speed_reading/index.htmlHere are some more free speed-reading sites:- The Study Hall Free Speed Reading Programs http://www.studyhall.com/sread.htm- Road To Reading Homehttp://www.roadtoreading.org/ - University of Texas Speed Readinghttp://www.utexas.edu/student/lsc/sprdg.html - Speed Reading Linkshttp://www.readingsoft.com/flinks.html - ReadRace: Free Java application for speed readinghttp://supershareware.co.uk/Apps/8080.asp- WannaLearn.com: Personal Enrichment : Speed Readinghttp://www.wannalearn.com/Personal_Enrichment/Speed_Reading/

Author: Michael Southon
Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com