How to Learn Faster

HOW TO LEARN FASTER By Howard Stephen Berg Director, Berg, Beasley, & Associates, LLC. The World’s Fastest Reader (Guinness, 1990) With Comments by: Dr. Kuni Michael Beasley Member, Berg, Beasley, & Associates, LLC Dean, Gateway Preparatory School, Inc.

This document is made available to the receiver to download and print for personal use only. No part of this work may be copied, duplicated, or distributed in any manner without written permission from Berg, Beasley, & Associates, LLC. All Rights Reserved Berg, Beasley, & Associates, LLC. © 2007

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CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Speed Reading

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INTRODUCTION

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ore information is published each week than in all of human history through the year 1800; yet, the average reading speed is only 200 wpm with a mere 10% being

retained into long-term memory. In the time it takes you to read this sentence, I can read this entire page…and another as well. Recognized as the “world’s fastest reader” (Guinness, 1990), I will help you learn to read faster so you can complete your assignments quickly and easily, and still find time for things that you enjoy. THE ROOTS OF SLOW READING You already possess the ability to rapidly read essential information. It is an innate ability. Let me prove this to you. Think about how much information your brain must process while driving an automobile on a highway. It must view and analyze the motions of the surrounding cars, road conditions, weather conditions, read signs, and at the same time avoid hitting animals or people who might cross the road. Instead of being overwhelmed by all this information you become so bored that you might turn on the radio, talk to other passengers, or make cell phone calls. If your brilliant brain is so adept at swiftly reading a road during a drive, then why can’t it read text just as quickly and easily? The answer is simple. Instead of seeing a book during reading, your brain hears a voice that pronounces the word sounds printed on the page. Quite simply, you don’t see a book—your hear it. Yet, vision is faster and more powerful than hearing. By becoming a more visual reader you will instantly increase your reading speed. Let’s begin this process together.

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BECOMING A MORE VISUAL READER Watch a child read and what do you see? You see them reading words one letter at a time, such as D O G spells dog. As an adult, your brain barely notices the letters appearing on the page. Instead you see entire words like dog, or even entire phrases like “hot dog”, “ice cream”, or “United States of America”. “United States of America” contains four distinct words, almost the width of an entire column in a textbook or newspaper. If you can see four words then why can’t you see entire lines, sentences, paragraphs, or even an entire page at a glance? You can! You just need a simple system that improves your brain’s visual reading efficiency. The first step is understanding how your magnificent brain is decoding text on the unconscious level. Once you become conscious of this unconscious activity you will be able to speed it up to a higher reading speed still being able to comprehend, store, and recall essential information. As a student, I trained to become a Psychobiologist at the State University of New York at Binghamton. During my studies, I learned how our brain uses Schema, or more simply, our map of the world, whilst decoding text. Each of us has a lifetime of experiences stored in our memory map. Stored experiences that writers expect us to possess and use while reading. Let’s use an example to learn how you use Schema to interpret text. Imagine I wrote a story and told you, “The woman wore a red dress.” I would expect you to know what I meant by the word woman. As a reader you don’t expect me to explain to you that a woman is a female. You already know this information. You are using your Schema or life database to read this text. Probably the best way to demonstrate Schema’s important role in making text meaningful is by giving you a paragraph to read that is completely lacking any Schematic clues. Although the words in this passage taken from my Mega Speed Reading Program are simple and familiar you will find them almost impossible to read:

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This is an easy thing to do. If possible you will do it at home, but you can always go somewhere else if it is necessary. Beware of overdoing it. This is a major mistake and may cost you quite a bit of money. It is far better to do too little than attempt to do too much. Make sure everything is properly placed. Now you are ready to proceed. The next step is to put things into another convenient arrangement. Once done you’ll probably have to start again real soon. Most likely, you’ll be doing this for the rest of your life

It’s pretty tough decoding this text since it lacks any Schematic clues. Did you guess that this paragraph is discussing doing a load of laundry? Picture the word laundry printed right about this text as a single word title, and read this passage once again. Isn’t it amazing how much clearer this passage becomes simply by adding a single Schematically significant word? Even a single Schematic clue can make text understandable. From this example it is clear that Schema plays a major role in making text meaningful, but how do you know where to look for Schematic clues while reading?

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CHAPTER 2 How To Use Schematic Clues

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ust what constitutes Schematic clues in text? Both nouns and verbs in text constitute its Schematic clues. Nouns offer information about the people, places, and things while

verbs describe any actions that are taking place. The first step towards increasing your reading speed is to make a habit of looking for the people, places, and things doing the activities. Fortunately your brain is well suited for selectively filtering any information that you consciously command it to detect. Let me prove this to you with a simple experiment: •

Take a look about you and make a mental picture of all the red objects you can see.

•

Look very carefully and make a detailed map of these items.

•

Next, close your eyes and picture everything around you that is colored blue. Notice what you brain just did? It said, “Wait a minute, you told me to look for red, so how am I suppose to remember anything colored blue?” Your brilliant brain searches and finds exactly what you tell it to look at. The same thing transpires while reading. You must tell your brain to look for people, places, and things, and their actions; and it will seek and it will find them. There are some very useful filters that instantly empower your brain with the ability to spot important Schematic information. These are the same filters you were taught to use in school when writing. These filters are the questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how. While reading you must constantly ask yourself these questions to get the following related outcomes: • • • •

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WHO is this about WHAT is this about WHY is this happening WHERE is this taking place

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WHEN is this occurring WHY is this important HOW can I use this information

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A simple and effective way for remembering this information is to picture these key questions floating in your mind on cartoon shaped balloons linked to their appropriate data. The more visual you make your important information the faster you will be able to read and later recall it. For example, if I read about Paul Revere riding his horse to warn the Minute Men about the impending British invasion during the American Revolution, then I would do the following: • • • • • •

I see Paul Revere’s name pasted on my WHO balloon, I paste a picture of him warning the minutemen on my WHAT balloon, I see him riding into the woods on my WHERE balloon. It is during the American Revolution so I paste this on my WHEN balloon He does this because he is a patriot so I paste this on my WHY balloon. Paul is using a horse to accomplish his task so this gets pasted on my HOW balloon.

The following is a graphic illustration of what I am suggesting you do in your imagination:

Now that you can easily spot Schematic clues you will learn how to use these clues to increase your reading speed.

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CHAPTER 3 Increasing Your Reading Speed

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n the last two chapters, I have shared with you the importance of Schema in making text meaningful. Now let’s learn how to use Schematic clues to increase reading speed.

Consider this very important statement: authors publish text for a group of people, but you must read that text as an individual. A writer offers all the information he/she believes that anyone reading their text might require, because a writer can’t anticipate what every possible readers’ map of a subject might contain. On the other hand you tend to read text on subjects that are relevant to your work or hold special interest to you. This means that you often have a map of many of the important points found in many of the texts you must read, and you can use this map or Schema to reach incredibly high speeds in much of your reading. Ironically, many individuals actually slow down when encountering familiar or easy material. It is human nature to seek out and feel comfortable with familiar surroundings. For example, what might happen if you were reading a really complicated, boring, and challenging Chemistry text, and then found a really interesting, familiar, and easy section in that text. Would you be in a hurry to finish this easy and interesting portion of the text so you could focus upon difficult and boring information, or might you spend more time that you should staying in this comfortable and familiar text? Most people make the mistake of wasting valuable reading time focused upon things they already know, rather than productively using their time to learn new and necessary information. You won’t make this mistake ever again. In the future, as soon as you spot familiar or easy information, you will increase your reading speed and use your time to learn new, unfamiliar, important information. There are many significant applications of this in business that I would like to share with you.

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Imagine you are reading your daily newspaper. In business, it is essential to stay on top of timely and important information. Yet, you often hear the news on the radio on the drive to work, or perhaps view it on television. By the time you read the newspaper, much of the information it contains has already been learned. Spend more time on the news that you didn’t know about, and you will find yourself becoming a more productive newspaper reader. This is a skill I’ve shared with companies like Prudential Realty. Information changes daily in real estate, and good brokers search for leads in the newspapers, while keeping abreast of economic changes and changes in the law that can affect their industry. They know that failure to keep abreast can hurt their bottom line just as using that information correctly can increase their profitability. This same principal holds true for newsletters, and magazines that often contain sections of very familiar information. Your daily mail and e-mail are other areas where you can put this reading strategy into practice. Many executives have their mail screened by others, because they don’t have the time to pore through a pile of unopened mail. How often has someone made a poor judgment call and not shown you a piece of mail that you would have judged important? Scan your mail swiftly looking for things that require your personal attention, or letters that are responding to your personal requests. Look for mail that can be tossed, postponed, or delegated to someone else. Using Schematic clues you will find yourself quickly getting through your mail more efficiently than any assistant could possible accomplish. During a recent program I gave in Montreal for Cisco systems, I was told how they were receiving as many as 300 e-mails a day that seriously compromised their time and efficiency. Learning to speed read their e-mail greatly cut down on this waste of their time. Ironically, many of the e-mails were sent simply to notify people that a letter was on the way. You can significantly cut down on this waste in your company

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by making people aware that they should either send their letter by e-mail, or use the regular mail. Have them stop cluttering up your associates’ time by sending e-mails announcing that regular mail is on the way! The Schematic technique we have just learned works well for familiar or easy material, but not everything you read is easy or familiar material. We need a different strategy for speed reading unfamiliar information. It is important to remember that only about 40% of a text is information, and that the rest is explanation. Explanations take the form of stories, anecdotes, examples, and illustrations. Writers use these structures to clarify, simplify, and exemplify the information they are offering to you. However, you will often find that you understand points made in text and don’t require any additional assistance. When this happens, you can quickly skim these embellishments and move onto the next new and significant point in your text. Only when you find yourself confused or unable to understand a technical point should you take advantage of the extra information the writer included to help make difficult text easier for you to learn.

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CHAPTER 4 Increasing Your Emotional Intelligence

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et me give you an example of how to use Schema to speed up your reading in unfamiliar material. One of the most successful books ever published is the “Power of

Positive Thinking.” Other self-help book authors often use the structure of this book. First, there is a paragraph describing a potential problem. Next, there is a paragraph describing how to solve this problem. Finally, there is a 28-page story about someone who has the problem and successfully used the solution. Do you really need to read these 28 pages if you already understand how to solve the problem? Absolutely not! You won’t waste your valuable and limited learning time doing this either. Instead, only use this additional help if and when required. You will find a new zip in your reading speed with essentially the same comprehension. Next we shall deal with

the secret to maintaining an alert, focused, and positive cognitive state that is essential for successfully conducting business. ESTABLISHING A POWERFUL LEARNING STATE No matter how well you learn material, you will not benefit from your knowledge if you become too tired. There is a simple technique developed by Marcus Conyers, one of the graduates of my Mega Speed Reading Program, which will enable you to instantly tap into the unlimited energy necessary for successful business operations. To get optimum results from this exercise it is important that you stand up and also imagine that your energy is increasing as you perform each of the following steps: 1. Touch you left hand to your right shoulder 2. Touch your right hand to your left shoulder Repeat these steps 3X 3. Touch you left hand to your right knee 4. Touch your right hand to your left knee

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Repeat these steps 3X 5. Raise your hands high over your head 6. Scream out enthusiastically “I FEEL GREAT!” 7. Scream out “YES!” while squeezing your right thumb tightly and pulling it towards your right side Repeat all of the above steps 3X

This really can turn up your energy when done properly. Why does it work? It is based upon the time-honored principle of classical conditioning from Psychology. Think back to school when you learned about how the great Russian Psychologist Pavlov conditioned a dog to drool while hearing a bell ring. Pavlov consistently rang a bell each time the dog was fed. Eventually, just hearing the bell elicited a drooling response from the dog. In exactly the same way, squeezing your thumb and saying, “I feel great, YES,” each time you create a high-energy state, you will make this gesture a powerful stimulus for releasing high your own limitless energy. This is an incredible tool for you to use when you need instant energy. Imagine having to work late at night, or attending a long demanding meeting, and suddenly needing some extra energy to accomplish your task. Squeezing your thumb and saying, “I feel great, YES”, (inside your head silently) will release a flood of much needed energy. This is one of many tools we have developed to help you create a peak state for successful business practice.

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CHAPTER 5 How to Retain & Recall Information

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nly four hours after studying you will forget over 40% of what you learn. Over 40%! As the worlds fastest reader, I have learned the importance of accelerated

memory skills for retaining information. The same memory skills that enable me to retain details at even 80 pages per minute, will also help you retain essential school information. Let us see what makes things more memorable. Centuries ago the Greeks discovered one of the major secrets of memory. They found that powerful emotions glue information into the permanent memory. Let’s see how this works. Information already stored in your permanent memory is similar to hangers in a closet. In the same way that hangers enable the storage of clothing in a closet, mental hangers in your permanent memory empower your brain to store new information. Emotional glue instantly links your new information with stored information already in your brain. Your ability to remember is directly proportional to the powerful emotional responses the image elicits. In short, effective linking requires you to create a unique image that produces extremely powerful emotions. Let us see exactly how this works with the following simple drill. Using your traditional memory technique, memorize the following 5 items in less than one minute: (1) Screw, (2) Two By Four, (3) Sneakers, (4) Tomato Soup, (5) Window Cleaner. In less than a minute, using your traditional memory tool this list can be difficult to permanently remember. Using the emotional anchors discovered by the Greeks, you will remember this list in a flash. Furthermore, you will be able to remember it backwards, forwards, or perfectly in any other sequence. Additionally, you will effortlessly be able to accomplish this more difficult task. Hard to believe? Let us do it together. The first step is to use a list of objects already familiar to you. Objects previously stored

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in your permanent memory. These objects will become your memory hangers. The parts of your body meet all the necessary criteria. Your body parts are highly familiar to you, and are already stored in your permanent memory. Let us use the Feet, Shin, Knees, Thighs, and Stomach, which are in a convenient order for remembering new information. Our next step is to create a highly emotional image that links the objects in your list to your familiar body parts. The first object is a SCREW, and the first body part is your FEET. Imagine a sharp, rusty SCREW, going through your FEET and out the top. OUCH! This is certainly a powerful emotional image. When you think of your feet what object immediately is recalled? The screw. Congratulations, you have just memorized the first object on your list. A TWO BY FOUR is the second object on your list, and it must be linked to your SHINS. Picture your SHINS being shattered by a TWO BY FOUR. Thinking about your shins, instantly makes you remember the two by four. Next you need to link SNEAKERS to your KNEES. To create this emotional image requires a bit of imagination. Picture Dirty Harry wearing a pair of SNEAKERS, kicking and shattering your KNEES. Imagining your knees instantly helps you remember a pair of sneakers. The fourth object in your list is TOMATO SOUP, and your familiar object is your LAP. This is an easy image. Think about a boiling pot of TOMATO SOUP spilling onto your LAP. Contemplating your lap you instantly remember tomato soup. Your last object is WINDOW CLEANER, and it must be linked to your STOMACH.

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Think about drinking a bottle of WINDOW CLEANER and it draining into your STOMACH. Pondering your stomach immediately makes you think about window cleaner. Now you are ready to instantly remember the FIVE OBJECTS on your list by recalling the emotional images linking them to your FIVE BODY PARTS. I will give you the name of a body part and you picture the object linked to it. Ready? Begin: (1) Feet, (2) Shins, (3) Knees, (4) Lap, (5) Stomach. See how easy it is to remember items when using emotional anchors. You can use this same technique for memorizing information for school. Incidentally, I used painful images because everyone agrees on what is painful, while our concept of pleasure can vary. Nevertheless, strong positive emotions are also effective in anchoring information into memory.

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CHAPTER 6 Learning for the st

21 Century

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SURVIVING – INDEED, THRIVING – IN THE INFORMATION AGE Comments by Dr. Beasley We need to understand the three principles of processing information: 1. Volume: The sheer volume of information is increasing exponentially. Every two years, the amount of information doubles and soon, that will double every six months! 2. Velocity: Not only is there more information, it is coming at us faster and faster, which compounds the Volume problem. 3. Value: Someone has to assess the value of this information – determine what is important and what isn’t. This takes time! Earlier, Howard shared the idea of Schema and how a simple word like “laundry” could help you “connect the dots” in an otherwise confusing text. Once you get the Schema, and your brain knows what it is looking for (something we call “Purpose”), the dots line up and the puzzle pieces come together – almost instantly! Schema and Purpose establish the Value of the information you are processing. If you know your Schema and know your Purpose, you will be better able to deal with the Volume and Velocity issues. Let’s look back at a real event where Schema and Purpose would have helped before, and certainly helped after a tragic event. LAUNDRY AND 9-11 September 11, 2001, saw America under attack by terrorists. Almost all the information that could have given clues to government officials on what was being planned was easily available. However, with the Volume and Velocity, it was almost impossible to attach the proper Value to the information being processed. Most of the data looked like that “Laundry” paragraph earlier. Unfortunately, it took airliners crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania, for someone to get the epiphany “Laundry!”

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Many who remember those events, will recall that officials had most of the dots connected by that evening – even the names and pictures of some of the hijackers. Once they had Schema and Purpose, the information was quickly and easily assimilated. This is a heartrending example, but like Howard mentioned earlier, it’s the “pain” that makes it stick. The key to finding Value is Schema and Purpose. As you read with Schema and Purpose, and know that it is about “Laundry” when you start, you connect the dots quickly. KNOWLEDGE AS A STRATEGIC ASSET If you know more than others, you tend to have more options, opportunities, and, of course, more income. A physician certainly has a greater income than a laborer, and why. Because the physician has accumulated more knowledge that has value in our society, he/she has a more valuable position and is thus rewarded for the knowledge he/she is able to apply to help others. People who know more have a strategic advantage over those who know less. If you are able to read more, better, faster, you can have a strategic edge. The edge will be determined by the value of what you know and can apply. If you read a lot of junk, you might be entertaining at party or in a trivia contest, or even have a crack at Jeopardy, but those opportunities are very long and narrow. Hopefully, you will focus your reading on those things with are valuable and profitable. SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS Howard mentioned earlier your “brilliant brain.” It might sound facetious, but it is true, and I can prove it. Consider this: 1. I don’t know anyone who had to send his or her child to remedial Nintendo class. 2. I don’t anyone who had to hire a Game Boy tutor. 3. As far as I know, Xbox had never had to “dumb down” any of their games.

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We know the capacity exists to learn quickly. When children get a new video game, many usually have it mastered in a few hours. How? They use Schema and Purpose, and they don’t even know that they are doing it! Their memory banks from previous games provide excellent Schema and, of course, they have a lot of “Purpose.” Why should it be any different for adults – who have greater Schema and even more important Purpose. Dr. Beasley

Learning Products we have available Right off the press new four-hour DVD program encompassing Speed Reading, Accelerated Learning, Study Skills, and continuation of many items introduced in this lesson. Comprehensive learning program covering Read-Study-Test-Write Gateway Advantage (2005) skills in a 12-hour DVD program with notebooks and workbooks. Four-hour DVD program with complete introduction to the SAT, Gateway to the SAT (2005) and Dr. Beasley’s test-taking techniques for SAT Math, Reading, Writing, and the Essay portions. Included are specific instructions on what to do the week before, the night before, and the day or the SAT. CD and Workbook program by Howard Berg showing how to use Super Math Secrets (2004) accelerated techniques to solve complex math problems. Howard Berg’s CD and Workbook on how to increase your memSuper Memory Secrets (2004) ory and recall abilities. Contact us at the addresses on the next page for prices on these

Ultimate Reading Solution (2007)

Gateway Preparatory School

A comprehensive online private college prep school with school sites in Houston, network groups in Palm Desert, CA, and Atlanta, GA, and internet students across the US and Canada, and overseas. The accelerated learning skills are embedded into the curriculum. The School has been in business 10 years. Visit the website www.gatewayprep.com for more information.

Free Workshops

Howard Berg and Dr. Beasley are available for free workshops for your school, business, or organization. Workshops are available at no charge within a 2-hour drive around the Dallas-Ft. Worth or Houston areas, and we have trained consultants who can provide workshops in Atlanta and southern California. For areas beyond these, workshops are still free, but you will have to cover travel expenses.

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HOW TO CONTACT US Howard Stephen Berg Phone: (866) MrReader Phone: (972) 548-0692 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.MrReader.com

Dr. Kuni Beasley Phone: (866) 429-5951 Phone: (214) 797-4283 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.GatewayPrep.com

5100 Eldorado Parkway, Ste 102-712 McKinney, TX. 75070 Fax: (443) 606-0550

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NOTES

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