Dear blogreader,
Today I conducted an aptitude test for a speed reading course offered in the city.I first came accross the company and its offer of this useful personal developmenent skil at a trade exposition.Finally,I declined to take up the course due to limited time as the course was on weekdays after work and was going to clash with my Spanish lessons.The second deterrent was the high fee.At 1600€,it was exorbitantantly high even for acquisition of this special skill.
Since,the initial plan to learn through the company was abandoned,I searched the net for books to improve my reading skills.I felt I needed this skill yesterday to devour all the books I have at home.There were two parts to the aptitude test.The first was to read out words form a paragraph,while an assistant is sliding down a triangular frame.This technique obviously blocks other words,and will apparently endow a reader with the valuable skill to speed reading of skim reading.The traiangular frame inhibits a person from reading word by word.We were all taught to read word by word from childhood,however this learned and limiting habit is inefficient for learning.A human being´s pair of eyes is meant to capture information,sgnals or visuals as blocked units,That just simply mean we see complete objects,not half paintings nor half buildings as examples.Hence the use of the triangular shape is to force the eyes, to make a quick and rapid snapshot of the words while being slided along the literature.A useful approach to this is to hold books further than usual,as to see more of the text!
In my second exercise to determine my reading and memory levels,I was given an article to read.It was in formal but not very technical Spanish so I could follow it with relative ease.The time it took me to read it was timed.The article was taken away and I was given a set of questions relating to the article to answer!It turned out that for that article I had 70 to 80% retention rate in short term memory!!
Finally,I really see many advantages for this skill;whether someone reads a lot in their career or field,for example in translation,or for avid readers and even people who are lazy to read can benefit from this skill.That is people who usually dont read,can work at their skill now,and read in a less cumbersome(word-by-word) and labour intensive way,as the old method obviously required more eye focus and concentration.Its similar to the networking marketing concept of work now,and get paid for the rest of your life.
The benefits of speed reading are to improve reading skills by increasing the number of words read that can be read in each visual triangle.Secondly as a result,decreasing the amount of time spent reading the previously mentioned triangular block and finally decrease the frequency in which a reader skips back to a previous sentence.
I think these are useful skills,dont you?
Whoooaaa
Sarah
