Super Reading Secrets
by Howard Stephen Berg

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• ISBN13: 9780446362993
• Condition: New
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Book Reviews of Super Reading Secrets

Book Review: "Another Toke Over the Line"
Summary: 1 Stars

The main reasons I read so quickly and effectively are:
***1. I learned to read very early--before first grade--and in an extremely positive and supportive atmosphere which made fast and attentive reading seem as normal as breathing. In short: I developed the HABIT of reading, reinforced EARLY, often, and for many years.
***2. I was MOTIVATED to read. My parents gave me extraordinary reinforcement through the manifest joy they shared with me in seeing me reading. (They also were brilliant professional people who were emotionally balanced and loving.) My reading "environment", that is, was superbly supportive.
***3. OPPORTUNITY. My home had thousands of books--a miscellany of types/genres. They were readily accessible whenever I wished to read.
***4. FOCUS. All the above factors gave me great powers of concentration when reading. I never remember NOT reading and have rarely felt anything but anticipatory pleasure when contemplating a book or article or poem, etc., I had intended to read. I was ready, willing, and able, with visceral pleasure, to plunge into a book.
***5. PLASTICITY OF READING TECHNIQUE. Like a tool kit, some items I read with mental verbalization (such as poetry) and others without verbalization (technical material). In general, the more affective or aesthetic in orientation, the more I'm likely to verbalize. (Who wants to speed read Shakespeare?)

The more sheerly informative or formally declarative a book is--that is, the more non-affective is its content, nothing is to be gained--except reinforcement of ineffective habits perhaps?--by subvocalizing the words. (Exceptions to the rule, to be discussed elsewhere: Some extraordinarily well-written informative literature has abstract beauty, architectonic economy, and/or intrinsic order--e.g., an elegantly written technical manual, or an ingeniously written computer program.) With such info-laden, and relatively affective-empty materials, I skip the subvocalization and dramatically accelerate my reading speed and factual comprehension. My selection of technique is invariably intuitive and immediate, without conscious choice. Even if I stop and contemplate the consequences of a given info-laden paragraph, I will have read that paragraph very quickly, without subvocalization. Following that reading, the subsequent few moments are invested in reflection upon that paragraph and perhaps its connections--its innate "hyperlinks" to other paragraphs within the same text, other texts, knowledge I otherwise have, and various degrees of conscious and semi-conscious connections to information, relationships, and experiences within my memory and current awareness.

Reading is not only about comprehension, fast or slow, as I have indicated in my observations about reading affective materials. Indeed, reading is also about: being affected by the reading; being transformed in heart and mind; reconceptualizing habitual thinking, perceptual, and feeling patterns; pure pleasure; vicarious participation in imaginary domains; etc. These are also reading skills, and skills that "power" or "photo" reading do not even address. They are options not considered. (Some do obliquely mention such reading skills/aspects, without addressing the concerns I've expressed. As such, the various speed reading books omit many of the aspects which make reading a valuable, exciting, and pleasurable experience, and which motivate many of us to read in the first place. If the authors were intellectually honest and clear with the reader, the entire genre of speed reading books would acknowledge that they primarily address info skimming and gleaning skills.)

No book can teach such intuitively and immediately available reading virtuosity within a few weeks, any more than any basketball coach can teach the fluid moves of Kobe Bryant in a summer clinic. Of course, there's a difference: all persons of normal intelligence, I submit, can develop a much greater degree of reading virtuosity, while physical virtuosity is more sharply related to biological determinates. Reading virtuosity is more a result of fortunately provided, or consciously chosen, psychological determinates, including the formation of determinable reading attitudes and habits.

Also, and not "PC" (politically correct): intelligence does make a difference. Of course it does! Does not rapid/ fast/ speed/ any-other-type-of-reading involve interpretation? Is the meaning and implications of the words, sentences, and paragraphs self-evident? Of course not! So intelligence must necessarily matter. Yet, importantly, none of this should dissuade any of us from working to improve reading skills, of which speed is only one component (if an important one). We all can. I am simply arguing against any misplaced "affirmative action" in reading education. You are where you are in your skills. Accurate assessment is vital. You will do yourself no favors by fantasizing of reading pages at one glance. (Yes, you can learn to skim very quickly and effectively, and remember an enormous amount of information--especially when such skimming is complemented by interspersed and selective reading of chosen sections of the material you're reading. If one has never learned to so skim, and especially if one also reads slowly and ineffectively, learning to skim with skill can seem like an epiphany! One's new skimming skills produce results that are superior to one's previous reading results. One is thus converted to Berg's or Scheele's "super reading" or "photoreading", misinterpreting the chosen reading system as THE reading system.

Quick attitude changes, I suspect, can immediately help develop better reading skills by simply moving the reader from his/her (unfortunately) typical somnambulistic state to a more conscious and focused state of mind. That shift of conscious purpose may be the chief value--to the extent there is value--in such books as Howard Stephen Berg's (or Paul Scheele's).

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