Reading_Stephen Covey - Speed Reading.pdf

The Speed Reading Course
By Peter Shepherd
& Gregory Unsworth-Mitchell
Email: shepherd@
Web site: Tools for Transformation
Copyright © 1997 Peter Shepherd
The Speed Reading Course
Introduction
We all learn to read at school, after a fashion. But for most of us, this is not an
optimal use of our brain power. In this course you will learn to better use the
left brain's focused bined with the right brain's peripheral
attention, in close harmony. munication between the brain
hemispheres is a pre-requisite for creative thinking and also a sense of well­
being, where thoughts and feelings are integrated.
As you probably expect, this course will also teach you to read much faster and
at the same time, to remember more of what you have read. These are
obviously great advantages.
There is another major benefit. Most of us, as we read, 'speak' the words in our
heads. It is this subvocalisation that holds back fast reading and it is
unnecessary. It is possible to have an inner speech, a kind of 'thought
awareness,' that isn't linked to the tongue, mouth and vocal chord muscles, and
this is much faster and more fluent. Cutting out the identification of
vocalisation and the stream of thought gives a surprising by-product. Many of
us think that our constant subvocalised 'speaking voice' is who we are. Finding
out that you can think and be aware without a vocal stream of words, opens up
your consciousness to the usually unrecognised domain of intuition and
spiritual awareness. You'll have a better sense of who you really are. Try it and
see!
The Definition of Reading
Reading may be defined as an individual's total inter-relationship with
symbolic information. Reading is munication process requiring a series
of skills. As such reading is a thinking process rather than an exercise in eye
movements. Effective reading requires a logical sequence of thinking or
thought patterns, and these thought patterns require prac