The Evelyn Wood Speed Reading

For most people, when they think about the program speed reading leader, they think of the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading system. The program that Evelyn Wood created was the first formal course available that taught people how to read faster and is a world renowned program. The techniques of speed reading that she introduced have been proven over time by generations of students who have enjoyed reading speed improvement.

Perhaps the Evelyn Wood program would never have existed if Evelyn had not watched one of her professors, at the University of Utah, read and grade her 80-page term paper in just ten minutes. Even though her professor was able to read at a remarkable rate of 2,500 words per minute, he had not acquired the skill through any specialized training. In fact, he was unable to explain to her how he was able to read and comprehend so quickly.

But, this was enough to pique her interest in the subject and spurred her on to learn more about how to read faster, wanting to acquire the skill for herself. Later, as a school teacher, she also believed it would be a valuable skill to share with others. Soon she learned that there were many people who knew how to read fast and she discovered that people had been doing so for centuries. And so, the beginning principles of the Evelyn Wood program began to formulate.

During the following two years, Evelyn learned about more than 50 people from virtually every walk of life and every age group, who all had the ability to read with lightning speed. They were accomplished speed readers who devoured written materials at the pace of 1,500 to 6,000 word per minute. What impressed her even more was that they also showed an impressive level of both comprehension and recall in addition to their speed. By analyzing their techniques, the foundation for the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading course began.

She soon learned that each reading genius she was studying had some common traits. They did not read single words, but grouped or chunked words as they read. They saw the words in meaningful patterns as they moved their eyes smoothly, rapidly and easily down the page. They changed their speed to adjust to the kind of material they read and were able to quickly identify the key phrases in a paragraph and the central idea of a book or article. Soon, these very speed reading techniques became the cornerstone of the Evelyn Wood approach.

Evelyn's first student was herself. She painstakingly taught herself these reading speed improvement principles and practiced them regularly. Soon, she had developed to the point of being able to read several thousands words per minute. Her next task was to develop a system to teach others how to read fast and in 1959, she opened the first Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Institute in Washington DC.

While there are now many different speed reading programs on the market, Evelyn Wood and her Speed Reading courses are still highly regarded today. She is revered for the pioneering efforts she made and for bringing speed reading and reading comprehension teaching to people around the world.

These days, people don't have to go to an Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Institute to learn her methods. There are a number of ways that people can learn her speed reading methods. Classroom learning is still an option in some areas, but in this age of hectic schedules, her courses on video and on DVD have become best sellers. Anyone who feels the stress of trying to keep abreast of the huge amount of information coming at them, would do well to look to the Evelyn Wood method of speed reading to help them sharpen their skills.

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Today's Tip On Speed Reading For people who love to read, speed reading is a natural complement to their drive to learn all they can from books. Knowing how to read faster allows people to not only move through written materials faster, but it has also been shown that comprehension is much higher for speed readers than the comprehension levels of someone who reads at average to slow speeds.

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