Name : Abednego Tri Saputra

Class : A3

ID : 190307092

UTS Intensive Reading

 Speed reading can seem like an almost superhuman

Many of us would love to be able to read faster, yet still take everything in. There are
methods dating back decades that people have tried in the hope of being able to digest a
lengthy book in well under an hour.

The most obvious method, which we all do from time to time, is to skim read, glancing
through the text and flicking through the pages to try to find the key points. Or there’s meta-
guiding where you use your finger to point to specific words, to keep your eyes on track
without getting distracted. Or methods where you learn to read several lines at a time. And
now digital technologies have been developed, with apps that take text and then flash the
words up one on the screen one at a time in rapid succession.

There is no doubt that clever methods like these can help you get through the text faster. The
question is how much understanding you trade in for that speed. When it comes to hard
evidence, it can be difficult to assess commercial courses and apps claiming to improve your
speed-reading abilities because experiments under controlled conditions conducted by
independent observers are rare.

For some answers, we can turn to the work of the late psychologist Keith Rayner who was at
the University of California, San Diego. He spent many years assessing the mechanisms
behind some of these methods and pioneered reading-speed research by tracking eye
movements. In 2016, he published a paper reviewing what the latest science can tell us about
attempts to speed read.
 How Learn to Speed Read

Once you learn proper reading techniques and turn your new reading behaviors into a habit,

reading faster will become effortless.As you are practicing these new habits, realize that you

should not be interested in comprehension while practicing.

The goal during speed reading exercises is to change your muscle memory and improve your

reading habits and eye movements. Focus first on changing your habits, and when your brain

adjusts to this new method of reading, you will comprehend as much, if not more, than you

did when you were reading slow.

Just like when Tiger Woods changed his golf swing at the top of his game, it will take you

some time to adjust to this new way of reading. But when your new reading habits kick in,

watch out! You’ll be reading faster and comprehending more than you ever dreamed

possible.

Here’s how the speed reading training process will look as you go from slow reader to speed

reader.

A. Learn the proper speed reading technique.

B. Practice the technique.

C. Practice reading quickly.

D. Turn technique into habit and focus on improving comprehension.

When we are reading, most word detection takes place in the central part of the retina called

the fovea where there’s a high concentration of cells called cones. These cells detect the

pattern of light and dark areas on the page, and pass that information on to the brain where

the pattern is recognised as words. Some speed-reading methods aim to teach people to use

more of their peripheral vision to read, allowing people to take in more than one word at a

time. But in the periphery of the retina you find fewer cones and more of a cell type called

rods, which aren’t as good at picking out light and dark areas on the page.
If you understand several basic principles of the human visual system, you can eliminate

inefficiencies and increase speed while improving retention.

To perform the exercises in this post and see the results, you will need: a book of 200+ pages

that can lie flat when open, a pen, and a timer (a stop watch with alarm or kitchen timer is

ideal). You should complete the 20 minutes of exercises in one session.

A) Synopsis: You must minimize the number and duration of fixations per line to

increase speed.

You do not read in a straight line, but rather in a sequence of saccadic movements

(jumps). Each of these saccades ends with a fixation, or a temporary snapshot of the text

within you focus area (approx. the size of a quarter at 8 inches from reading surface). 

B) Synopsis: You must eliminate regression and back-skipping to increase speed.

The untrained subject engages in regression (conscious rereading) and back-skipping

(subconscious rereading via misplacement of fixation) for up to 30% of total reading

time.

C) Synopsis: You must use conditioning drills to increase horizontal

peripheral vision span and the number of words registered per fixation.
Untrained subjects use central focus but not horizontal peripheral vision span

during reading, foregoing up to 50% of their words per fixation (the number of

words that can be perceived and “read” in each fixation).

To illustrate, let us take the hypothetical one line: “Once upon a time, students enjoyed

reading four hours a day.” If you were able to begin your reading at “time” and finish the line

at “four”, you would eliminate 6 of 11 words, more than doubling your reading speed. This

concept is easy to implement and combine with the tracking and pacing you’ve already

practiced.

1) Technique (1 minute):

Use the pen to track and pace at a consistent speed of one line per second. Begin 1 word in

from the first word of each line, and end 1 word in from the last word.

DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH COMPREHENSION. Keep each line to a

maximum of 1 second, and increase the speed with each subsequent page. Read, but under no

circumstances should you take longer than 1 second per line.

2) Technique (1 minute):

Use the pen to track and pace at a consistent speed of one line per second. Begin 2 words in

from the first word of each line, and end 2 words in from the last word.

3) Speed (3 minutes):

Begin at least 3 words in from the first word of each line, and end 3 words in from the last

word. Repeat the technique, keeping each line to no more than ½ second (2 lines for a single

“one-one-thousand”).

Some will comprehend nothing, which is to be expected. Maintain speed and technique-you

are conditioning your perceptual reflexes, and this is a speed exercise designed to facilitate

adaptations in your system. Do not decrease speed. ½ second per line for 3 minutes; focus

above the pen and concentrate on technique with speed. Focus on the exercise, and do not

daydream.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.tckpublishing.com/speed-reading/

https://tim.blog/2009/07/30/speed-reading-and-accelerated-learning/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading

https://youtu.be/ZwEquW_Yij0