Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes (Photo: Dustin Diaz) How much more could you get done if you completed all of your required reading in 1/3 or 1/5 the time? Increasing reading speed is a process of controlling fine motor movement—period. This post is a condensed overview of principles I taught to undergraduates at Princeton University in 1998 at a seminar called the “PX Project.” The below was written several years ago, so it’s worded like Ivy Leaguer pompous-ass prose, but the results are substantial. I have never seen the method fail. The PX Project The PX Project, a single 3-hour cognitive experiment, produced an average increase in reading speed of 386%. It was tested with speakers of five languages, and even dyslexics were conditioned to read technical material at more than 3,000 words-per-minute (wpm), or 10 pages per minute. If you understand several basic principles of the human visual system, you can eliminate inefficiencies and increase speed while improving retention. The Protocol First – Determining Baseline
99 Life Hacks Can I Learn to Read Faster and Get Through My Backlog of Books? Advice on how to read faster is all good and well, BUT: 1) Why does everything have to happen FASTER FASTER FASTER and why do you think you need to read MORE MORE MORE? It's not about quantity, but about quality. If you read good books, you're not done by the time you get to the last page. You have to think about it later and make sense of it. If you read books that don't require deep thinking like this, then there's no reason for you to want to read even more of these shallow works. 2) Speed reading in any but the most specialised and narrow contexts is completely useless. 3) From a literary perspective, audio books are not at all the same as printed / electronic books, because most writers write to be read, not to be heard, so they write sentences in ways that only appear special to you if you read them.
Science, Creativity and the Real World Gifted Homeschoolers Forum Science, Creativity and the Real World: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Homeschool Community By Corin Barsily Goodwin and Mika Gustavson, MFT A great deal of concern surrounds the lack of quality in science education in the United States. A simple Google search of “science education in America” brings up link after link on the horrific failure of standards and the many additional problems inherent in the current system of education. Moreover, the need for appropriate education for gifted students is also under attack—as it has been for many years. A 2012 study by the Fordham Institute[1] identifies four main factors for the failure of science standards to produce a flock of achievers: an undermining of evolutionary theory, vague goals, not enough guidance for teachers on how to integrate the history of science and the concept of scientific inquiry into their lessons, and not enough math instruction. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi ~William Butler Yeats Science and Homeschooling Conclusion
The 100 Best Lifehacks of 2011: The Year in Review Another year is coming to a close this weekend, and it’s been a banner one here at Lifehack. As you’ll see below, one of our most popular posts of 2011 was our 100 Best Lifehacks of 2010 article, which flows nicely into this post which will outline the 100 Best Lifehack of 2011. Unlike last year’s list, there’s a few changes we put into place before delivering this list to our readers. First off, the overall top 10 posts are determined by overall traffic during the past year, as well as engagement on social networks. The articles come from a wide variety of our website’s categories, whereas the remaining 90 articles are divided up into the primary categories that we write about at Lifehack: Communication, Lifestyle, Management, Money, Productivity and Technology. Those 90 posts were decided on based on visits to each article, social media interaction, comments and then were finally curated by the Lifehack editorial team. You’ve got a lot of reading to do here, os let’s get started… Money
5 Steps to Learning How to Speed Read in 20 minutes Imagine how much time you would save if you could double, even triple, your reading speed. The average American reads between 200-300 words per minute (wpm), and has been reading at that same rate since their mid-teenage years. If you fall within this category, a 300 page novel takes you approximately 7-8 hours to read. If you doubled your reading rate, you would read that same novel in 3.5-4 hours. If you tripled your reading rate, you would breeze through it in about 2.5 hours. Now, think about all the reading you do every single day (magazines, newspapers, blogs ) and how much time you could be saving—it adds up to literally hundreds of hours a year. In an interview, Bill Gates was once asked, “If you could have a superpower, what would it be?” Successful people read a lot. I had always considered myself a slow reader, and use to think there was nothing I could do about it. I learned that anyone can learn how to speed read. It’s not just for geniuses, and it’s not a myth. 1. 2. 3. 4.
What schools need: Vigor instead of rigor - The Answer Sheet This was written by Joanne Yatvin, a veteran public school educator, author and past president of the National Council of Teachers of English. She is now teaching part-time at Portland State University. A version of this was originally published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. By Joanne Yatvin Though my years in the classroom are long past, at heart I am still a cranky old English teacher who bristles at some of the neologisms that have crept into public language. Even so, I remain politely quiet when others commit such grammatical transgressions. Part of my reaction is emotional, having so often heard “rigor” paired with “mortis.” Now, more than ever, “rigor” is being used to promote the idea that American students need advanced course work, complex texts, stricter grading, and longer school days and years in order to be ready for college or the workplace. Since I believe it is time for a better word and a better concept to drive American education, I recommend “vigor.”
How To Tighten Your Grip On Your Memory Pneumonic devices. Singing. The old write-on-the-back-of-your-hand trick. If you suffer from forgetfulness, there may be a solution that doesn't require performing mental back flips to improve your memory muscles. It might be as easy as flexing your fist muscles, according to a new study published by the journal PLOSone. Researchers tested the short-term memory of 51 participants by giving them a list of words, then asking them to memorize and write down as many words as possible from the list. In a statement, Propper explained that muscle activity on the right and left side of the body helps to stimulate different hemispheres of the brain--triggering neuronal activity in brain sections relating to memory encoding and recall. Propper acknowledged that the study only incorporated data from right-handed participants--the results for left-handed and ambidextrous people will be published elsewhere--but expressed excitement at the link between muscle stimulation and memory recall.
GUARDIAN ANGEL KIDS online ezine for Kids! How did you learn the most difficult thing you ever learned? Some of our students may have used continued practice, trial and error or the aid of a mentor, hands-on tutorial, exploration, discovery, and mapping. Children have many different ways of learning and teachers can channel their students' learning styles. If we look closely, a learning style is an approach or process we use to learn something in terms of our own and students’ most “comfortable” way to learn. Teachers often teach using their preferred learning styles. Learning Styles are Challenging There are different ways of describing learning styles. Receiving Style Examples When putting together a piece of furniture, visual learners look at the instructions, auditory people ask someone to read them the instructions while they follow them and hands-on learners unpack the box using the instructions only if necessary. Evidence of Learning – Processing Styles Linear learners – Put things in order. Getting Started
How to Read Faster: Bill Cosby's Three Proven Strategies by Maria Popova “Nobody gets something for nothing in the reading game.” “All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading,” H. P. Lovecraft famously advised aspiring writers. Bill Cosby may be best-known as the beloved personality behind his eponymous TV show, but he earned his doctorate in education and has been involved in several projects teaching the essential techniques of effective reading, including a PBS series on reading skills. 1. Skimming can give you a very good idea of this story in about half the words, and in less than half the time it’d take to read every word.So far, you’ve seen that previewing and skimming can give you a general idea about content — fast. Learning to read clusters is not something your eyes do naturally. How to Use the Power of the Printed Word is a treasure trove of illuminating essays — highly recommended. Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. Share on Tumblr
Conventions of Writing Humanities Papers Professor Celia A. Easton Department of English State University of New York College at Geneseo Read a successful essay on Thucydides written by a student in my Fall 1999 section of Humanities 220. The first thought any writer should give to a paper is not "What am I going to say?" Organization. Introductory pitfalls. Praising the bard. Lab talk. Therapy thesis. Good Starts. In the body. Writing analysis. Creating your own organization. Limiting Description. Using Secondary Sources. When you are required to incorporate secondary sources into your essay, you must make sure that you are not simply writing a report. Using quotations. In The Second Treatise of Government, John Locke claims, " . . . ." Is this clear? Plagiarism. There are also positive reasons to cite sources. Weak conclusions. Sudden stop. Apology. As a famous writer once said. As I've just said. Good endings. Format. Center the title of your paper at the top of the first page of your essay (beneath your name, etc.).