{"id":92,"date":"2014-05-17T23:42:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-17T23:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=92"},"modified":"2014-08-11T21:35:16","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T21:35:16","slug":"my-speed-reading-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/my-speed-reading-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"My Speed-reading Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kaufman, in\u00a0<em>The First 20 hours<em>: \u00a0How to Learn Anything\u2026Fast!<\/em><\/em>, provides a checklist of things that we can do to help ourselves learn a new skill more effectively.\u00a0 If we follow his recommendations, Kaufman suggests that we may be able to learn a new skill in approximately twenty hours.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Research the skill and related topics.<\/li>\n<li>Jump in over your head.<\/li>\n<li>Identify mental models and mental hooks.<\/li>\n<li>Imagine the opposite of what you want.<\/li>\n<li>Talk to practitioners to set expectations.<\/li>\n<li>Eliminate distractions in your environment.<\/li>\n<li>Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization.<\/li>\n<li>Create scaffolds and checklists.<\/li>\n<li>Make and test predictions.<\/li>\n<li>Honor your biology.<a id=\"_ftnref1\" title=\"\" href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This week, I took Kaufman\u2019s challenge and focused on learning to speed-read. By learning speed-reading techniques, an average individual can read and absorb up to 400-600 words a minute. \u00a0That being said, the focus of speed-reading is not about being able to read fast, rather how to pick out key words and phrases to help one understand the material they are reading.<\/p>\n<p>The first step is to scan the title and table of contents to help quickly identify the main concepts and theme of the material. Once I understand what the book is about and how it is structured, I am able to quickly skim through the book and look for keywords and main ideas.\u00a0 This provides an \u201cairplane view\u201d of the material. \u00a0Sometimes, it is also helpful to make diagram or chart of information gleaned from the book.\u00a0 Drawing a chart helps the brain to structure difficult concepts or to remember relationships.<\/p>\n<p>The next step involves skimming the book, and pulling out the pertinent information that needs captured. Do not look at each individual word on a page.\u00a0 Instead, look at the page as a whole, and your mind will see every word on that page within one or two seconds. Compare this to looking at a picture or painting. When you look at a picture, you get a visual image of the story that the artist is telling.\u00a0 A house is made up of individual parts, such as the roof, windows, door, paint color, etc.\u00a0 When you look at a picture of a house, the mind doesn\u2019t see these individual parts.\u00a0 Instead, the mind sees a house.\u00a0 I always considered looking at pictures and reading books as two different exercises, but in reality they require much of the same mental processes and techniques.<\/p>\n<p>Next, begin a second pass of more in-depth reading; however don\u2019t read word for word. Read above the sentence, looking at the tops of the words and skim in a steady motion.\u00a0 Glide from left to right and you will discover that you will quickly finish a page or chapter of a book 25% faster. \u00a0The concept is that your eye will be able to interpret the word by skimming only the top, allowing your peripheral vision to help. The translation process will be faster than if your eye is required to spend time viewing the entire word. \u00a0For this process, I find it helpful to read from a paper copy so that I can write notes.\u00a0 If I don\u2019t understand something, I mark it quickly in the margin of the book so that I can go back and review more thoroughly.\u00a0 I also use a pencil or pen to trace my reading path.\u00a0 This forces my eyes and brain to keep moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the steps you take while reading a specific book, it is helpful to complete daily eye exercises.\u00a0 There are several different eye exercises that can be found online with a basic web search.\u00a0 By skimming charts with random patterns of letters and numbers, you can more quickly pick up words when you read.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, speed-reading is one of the best skills I have learned. \u00a0Hopefully, this will improve my ability to more quickly digest all of the reading while I research my dissertation. \u00a0As someone with dyslexia, reading at a fast pace is a challenge.\u00a0 Using both Kaufmann\u2019s techniques and improving my speed and reading comprehension, I can mitigate or offset some of the challenges that I face with my dyslexia.<\/p>\n<div>\n<hr \/>\n<div id=\"ftn1\">\n<p><a id=\"_ftn1\" title=\"\" href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Kaufman, Josh (2013-06-13). The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything \u2026 Fast! (p. 37). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kaufman, in\u00a0The First 20 hours: \u00a0How to Learn Anything\u2026Fast!, provides a checklist of things that we can do to help ourselves learn a new skill more effectively.\u00a0 If we follow his recommendations, Kaufman suggests that we may be able to learn a new skill in approximately twenty hours. Research the skill and related topics. Jump [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,29],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-kaufman","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1408,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/1408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}