SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! BECOME A SUPERLEARNER SECTION REVIEW SECTION 8 LECTURES ● Speed Training With A Card ● Progressive Overload Revisited: Training At The Speed You Wish To Read ● Speed Tip: Tricking Your Brain Into Speeding Up ● Managing Pauses To Create Markers While Speed Reading ● A Discussion of Marker Density ● Text Structure And Marker Hierarchy ● Training Going Forward & What To Do If You Backslide SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 2 SPEED TRAINING WITH A CARD ● Using a pen or finger to follow along with the text at the speed you wish to read sets you up for failure, because it gives you the opportunity not only to do short, small fixations in line with the pen, but also to jump back on the text. ● While you're learning it’s important to never, ever, go back on a paragraph of text because you feel you missed something ○ If you really have to go back, train yourself that you can go back only AFTER you've finished the whole paragraph, and reviewed its markers to see how much you retain. ● It'll drive you crazy not go back, but you have to break this habit — it’s a game-changer. ● You have permission to reread whole paragraphs or pages as many times as you need, but never stop and reread in the middle of a paragraph. ● To break this habit, we train with a card, usually an index card or a folded up piece of paper that covers up the entire page, and we cover the material that we have already read. ○ The card goes not on the bottom, but goes on the top and we're reading the line below it. ○ If we're reading on a digital device, we simply scroll the lines so that what we’ve already read is immediately moved off the screen. ● Because we’ve been training our peripheral vision, we’re able to see details a little further out, which distracts us. ○ But with the card, it will distract us with what's to come rather than distract us with what we've already read. ● You do not need to read with card forever. After a couple of weeks your new habit will become automatic, and then you can ditch the card. SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 3 PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD REVISITED: TRAINING AT THE SPEED YOU WISH TO READ ● Just like weightlifters constantly push their bodies just to the edge of their limits without going over, we need to do the same thing with speed reading by pushing the boundaries of your understanding and subvocalization. ● To do this, we are going to prescribe some specific phases for you to practice ○ NOTE: The times assume an average of 250-300 words per page, which is about the standard you’ll find on a 6x9 paperback book. ○ If you're using other materials, count the average number of words on a line, average the number of lines, and then multiply them, then make the adjustment to the number of seconds based on how much more or less than 250 words each page has. Phase 1 → 1 minute/ page (250 WPM) or 250 - 300 WPM on spreeder. ● You probably already read at this speed, but focus on saccades Phase 2 → 45 seconds / page (350 WPM) Phase 3 → 30 seconds / page (500 WPM) Phase 4 → 20-30 seconds / page (700 WPM) Phase 5 → 15 seconds / page (~1,000 WPM) ● The goal for each phase is not to speed up your reading to match your comprehension, but rather to input information at whatever speed you set with the card during the phase you're in. ○ You then will train until your comprehension is able to catch up to that speed. ● It’s going to take much more than 1-2 sessions, and you’re going to have to push yourself a lot ○ It’s okay to feel that you're getting anything out of the text ● Just don’t push yourself too hard ○ If your comprehension does not at least start to improve after 20 SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 4 PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD REVISITED: TRAINING AT THE SPEED YOU WISH TO READ (CONTINUED) ● It’s going to take much more than 1-2 sessions, and you’re going to have to push yourself a lot ○ It’s okay to feel that you're getting anything out of the text ● If your comprehension does not start to improve after 20 minutes or so of training, slow down a little bit so your comprehension can catch up. ● Once you can remember about 70% of the details, you can move on to the next phase and try to speed up again. ● Probably will take about five to ten sessions of ten to twenty minutes each, for each phase. ○ In time, your comprehension will catch up to the speed that we're having you read at in each of the phases. SPEED TIP: TRICKING YOUR BRAIN INTO SPEEDING UP ● Use this trick to overcome the overwhelm that comes with speed reading with progressive overload: ○ Take your card, and move it along the page at more than double the speed at which you’re trying to read ○ Do this three times. Try to catch as much as possible on the page, using saccades and our good habits ■ Can focus on the left side for one pass, the middle one for the second, and the right side for the third ■ Shouldn't expect to catch much of anything at this pace ● The point of this exercise is that when we slow down to the speed that seemed so challenging just a moment before, we're able to speed up and meet it. SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 5 MANAGING PAUSES TO CREATE MARKERS WHILE SPEED READING ● Do not create markers while we’re reading simultaneously. ● Instead, use “marker pauses” to ensure high retention. This does not decrease speed! ○ Should have 1-2 markers per paragraph and the markers should eventually start just popping up into your head ○ Pause for a second or so after each paragraph to remember what we've read, create markers, and even to link them up. ● The markers will become more and more detailed with practice and you will become faster and faster at creating them ● Sometimes it makes sense to subvocalize your markers only, like important phrases, and names so you'll enjoy the benefits of dual coding, while retaining a high reading speed. ● Occasionally, you may feel that you cannot finish the paragraph, because you vocalize a word and your attention drifts off. ○ This means that you need to stop and review your markers, because you’re overloading your short term memory. ● Taking pauses and looking up not only gives your brain a chance to “clear out” your short term memory and review your markers, and prevent eye strain ○ Make sure to look at something far away and do so when you make longer pauses ● Just like a text is broken up into paragraphs, and then chapters, and then sections, and finally the entire volume, so too should your marker review. ○ Spend around a second reviewing markers from within a paragraph, then look up and recall those markers for two to three seconds in between pages, or at least every few pages, to make sure that you’re connecting it all together going forward. ● Also take long pause between chapters and look up from your book for as long as 15 or 30 seconds and review all the markers you created and how they tie together. SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 6 MANAGING PAUSES TO CREATE MARKERS WHILE SPEED READING (CONTINUED) ● Also take long pause between chapters and look up from your book for as long as 15 or 30 seconds and review all the markers you created and how they tie together. ○ This tricks the hippocampi into thinking the information is relevant ● When you finish a book, it’s a good idea to flip through it quickly, or look at the table of contents, and try to recall as many of the markers as possible ● Doing this every few months is a great idea if you wish to maintain a high retention of the material. ○ In Review: ■ Make small pauses around 1 second in-between paragraphs ■ Make medium pauses of 2-3 seconds between pages ■ Make larger pauses of 15-30 seconds between chapters ■ Add in any additional pauses whenever you feel distracted, overwhelmed, or frustrated SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 7 A DISCUSSION OF MARKER DENSITY ● Don’t let the guidelines for amount of markers or time to spend on pauses hold you back or stress you out ● Marker Density depends on a number of factors ○ The density of the text ■ Nonfiction articles with lots of information are going to require much more than fiction books that might require one marker per page ○ What are you trying to get out of the text? ■ If you are looking for one piece of information in an article, you are going to be creating much sparser markers because you aren’t interested in memorizing all details ■ Other times you may want to remember many pertinent details and you’ll set more markers ● Grandmaster of Memory Mattias Ribbing recommends that beginners set only one marker per page trying to summarize each page with one very effective large 3D image ○ Jonathan thinks it’s better to create more than one marker per page, but this goes to show you that we shouldn't be too prescriptive about creating loads and loads of markers ● Over time individual markers will naturally start to merge in your mind to form more complex markers entire scenes or compound markers. ● After reading a book, your goal might be to have a dozen or so very valuable compound markers that you can refer to and even more markers that will be instantly recalled when you review your notes and perform spaced repetition SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 8 TEXT STRUCTURE AND MARKER HIERARCHY ● It makes sense to utilize the text’s inherent structure to our advantage, because if we build one mental slideshow or mental palace for the entire text, we won’t remember much of it ○ For example, we can use 3 distinct levels of markers for the text in highly structured form. ■ Top level → the whole book and its metadata ● Title, publication date, names of the authors and their bio, the main idea of the book and how it connects to other books in the field or to our own knowledge, even some critical responses, or our own impressions from the book. ■ Middle level → The books structure ● How different ideas relate to each other, and on which page to look for the ideas we want to review ■ Lowest level → Each section and its detailed information ● Can include stories, examples, or other interesting information ● For information you need unparalleled comprehension you may want to use a "memory palace" or a mindmap. ● It is important to generate strong differentiations between what we read and the reactions and thoughts we have as a result ● Remember: every time we finish reading a section, we pause for a second to connect it to the web representing that subject. SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 9 TRAINING GOING FORWARD & WHAT TO DO IF YOU BACKSLIDE ● In order to ensure that you succeed in your self-directed training, we want to set out some guidelines for you: ○ Remember to practice as many days a week as possible, with at least 4 practice sessions a week ■ Speed read as much everyday material as possible ■ If you're doing something very important for school or for work, you may need to speed read it a few times to get the level of comprehension necessary. But don’t let that be an excuse to fall back on subvocalization! ○ You should practice these skills for a few weeks, or even a few months in order to really start seeing these dramatic improvements. ■ These effects will only continue to develop and become more dramatic and more effortless, as your brain becomes more skilled, more interconnected, and more densely packed with incredible knowledge. ● Sometimes, you'll slip back into old habits — it's perfectly understandable and normal ○ It takes a very long time to overcome years and years of slow reading and subvocalization ● Don't lose focus or get frustrated ○ You can always return back to the lessons, and the exercise, and really review the fundamentals ○ It’s strongly recommend that you participate in the discussions in the SuperLearner Facebook group SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 10 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM SECTION 8 ● Never go back on a paragraph of text because you feel you missed something. Use an index card or a folded up piece of paper and cover the material that you have already read. ● Push the boundaries of your understanding and subvocalization by using progressive overload. Follow the phases as prescribed. ● To trick your brain to read faster, move your index card at more than double the speed at which you’re trying to read three times. When you actually try to read at your targeted speed, it will feel much easier. ● Do not create markers while we’re reading simultaneously. Make small pauses around 1 second in-between paragraphs, medium pauses of 2-3 seconds between pages, and larger pauses of 15-30 seconds between chapters ● Don’t let the guidelines for amount of markers or time to spend on pauses hold you back or stress you out. The amount of markers you use will depend on the density of the text and what are you trying to get out of the material SECTION 8 SUMMARY SECTION 8: LET’S SPEED THINGS UP! 11 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM SECTION 8 ● You can also try utilizing the text’s inherent structure to our advantage by breaking down the book into the 3 distinct levels of markers — top level, middle level, and lowest level ● Practice as much as possible, and if you stay dedicated, you will see results. Don’t slip into old habits, and make sure to participate in the facebook group! Other Action Items: ● Try out Spreeder, Sliding Word utility or Acceleread for iOS. ● Practice the “tricking your brain into speeding up” hack ● Complete Reading Diagnostic Worksheet #3 & save your results