Customer Reviews

Breakthrough Rapid Reading

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is probably the best book that I've read on speed reading. In an earlier review, I suggested that Zorn's book, "Speed Reading," was the best. It is indeed a fine book. Kump's book, however, give a more realistic idea of the kind of work it takes to boost your reading speed. Other books give a smattering of exercises--often very good ones--without emphasizing the kind of practice that is necessary, or even that you won't necessarily be able to maintain high speeds across all types of reading material.

Kump uses familiar reading exercises, and variations on them. The lessons are brief, and each lesson contains short (10-15 minutes) exercises; at the end of each lesson, you are instructed to do a series of drills. Kump wants you to spend about a week on each series of drills, and to repeat them every day. They can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour or more a day, depending on how much time you are willing to spend. I've found most--but not all--drills useful. The ones that were not useful to me drilled on skills I already had (recognizing levels of specificity within paragraphs, for instance).

Here's an example of one particularly useful drill. Kump has you read for 2 minutes, as fast as you can with comprehension. Then you read the same material again, trying to read a little faster, and a little further, in the same amount of time. And again. You do this four times. A variation of this is to read for 1 minute, then a little faster for another minute, and then to "practice read" (i.e., move your eyes quickly across the words, without worrying about comprehension) twice the longest passage in the same amount of time. Then you practice read three times the original (that is, the longest of the first two 1-minute drills) in one minute.

One REALLY nice thing about this book is that Kump has you use your own reading material, your own books. Other books include selections for you to practice with, most of which are tedious, simplistic, or just too brief. Kump's exercises work, and you can read your own books while you practice.

I started out viewing the Evelyn Wood videos (3 videos), which showed me the basic principles on speed reading. But Peter Kump's book was filled with more exercises than the three videos could have gone over with the viewer.

I found that even without the background I already had in the methods that Evelyn Wood teaches, the Peter Kump book is excellent and stands on its own. The exercises are explained thoroughly and not only does he teach rapid reading but also teaches comprehension techniques as well.

I was able to triple my speed in a matter of hours. With diligence I should be to able to increase my speed 5-fold,maybe 10-fold. The only other thing the reader should have is a timer or stop watch to help time oneself during the exercises.

I was already what was considered a pretty fast reader by its tests; in the 400wpm (words per minute) range at maximum speed. After going through the first half of the book, I was well over a thousand for the vast majority of all text. This has enabled me to go from a book or two a month to reading two or three a week, and has fundamentally changed my life. Even after the first couple of weeks I was dramatically improved, and after a couple of months of daily use, I was just flying.

On the bad side, I had trouble staying at the chapter per day pace, given a job, working on my Master's, and trying to spend time with my family. Still, I practiced, kept up with the new techniques, and continued to improve. Even though I left off just after I learned how to read at diagonals, it's stuck with me and been the best expenditure of time I've made.

I can't believe this isn't taught in school; it would've made college a completely different experience for me.

...

It's hard to call what this book teaches "rapid reading." That phrase makes it sound exotic and unreachable. I truly believe after reading this that everyday people can learn to read at 1000+ words per minute with excellent retention.

I first read this as a 20-year-old college student. With it, I learned to clock my reading rate at 350 words-per-minute. Like most people, I read from left-to-right in "rows of corn," sub-vocalizing. Although extremely bright, I never really could enjoy extensive reading. Doing it for school was a chore.

I tried all sorts of methods for taking notes on books. I tried a tape recorder. I tried writing in the margins. I tried post-it-notes. I tried marking page sections and writing notes longhand in a separate notebook. I tried typing at my computer as I read. I'd end up with sometimes dozens of pages of notes and outlines yet not feel like I could discuss the text fluently.

This book teaches how to process text differently. Now, I relax my eyes and ideas simply flow from the words. A page in a book is no longer like a step ladder or rows of corn -- but it is like a sculpture. As a pianist, I can say that reading text for me has become like reading music. Just as I can see a sheet of music and gain an idea of the song, I can look at a written page and see ideas. Every author has a rhythm and style.

After extensive and sometimes frustrating practice, based on techniques in this book, my understanding of text has completely changed. I am much more able to understand an author's central themes. Whereas before it seemed I could only think on a scale of words and sentences, now I can easily think on a scale of sections and chapters. I have much better judgement in taking notes and feel able to discuss books that I read much more fluently. Books that might have taken me 15 hours to read before now comfortably take 3 or 4.

I am now able to actually enjoy reading fiction. It's more like listening to a new peice of music now than forcing myself to plow through a haystack of text line-by-line and inch-by-inch. Literacy education truly needs to incorporate methods of visual reading. My only regret about this book was that I realized I hadn't been fully taught to read before!

I bought Breakthrough Rapid Reading (BRR) over an year ago when I wanted to read tons of technical journals and books but never had enough time. I also loved to read science fiction and fantasy as well as the news paper every day. As you can imagine, it meant that I would have to spend 4 to 5 hours each day reading all the stuff that I had to and wanted to. Mostly I had to compromise choosing tech stuff and sacrificing my love for sci-fi novels.
BRR did help me speed up. I was able to triple my reading speed as far as newspaper and novels are concerned.
Tech stuff still means that I slow down and look and understand each concept before moving on.
This is the key. This is what this book is all about.
Though it claims it will retrain your eyes and brain, all it does is to convince you to skim whenever you can. Since in most of the novels and newspaper over half the information can be skipped without losing context, you start reading, or shall I say getting through, them faster. If you want to retain information, remember what you have read, you need to slow down and read and re read sentences till you understand them.
So do not expect miracles. If you practice hard enough, you will be able to increase your reading speed by following few simple tricks in the book.
CONCLUSION: A good buy if this is your first speed reading course.

I had some serious doubts about "Speed Reading"...so I bought this one from Amazon after researching, and reading alot...ALOT...of user comments. This one struck me as the only one that claimed the least, looked the best (from user comments), and seemed like a good overall choice.

In about 4 days, I've worked my speed to double my original rate. I'm still going through the book, and frankly im not even a third of the way through. I now comfortably read probably 120% more than what I originally could. When I read the old fashioned way, I feel like a snail.

It takes work. Kump not only gives you exercises, directions, explanations of those directions, but also gives you some estimations of how much you will accomplish - depending on how hard you work at it.

I'll give an update when i'm through the book completely. But as of right now...I frankly dont see how anyone of average reading abilities could get this book and not at least double their reading rate within a short amount of time. And to me, that alone is worth the price of the book (two lunches, tops).

This is a home study course, but if you do it every day for as little as fifteen minutes a day, you can read over 1,000 words per minute in three to six months. You need to be able to read at a high school level reasonably well, but even if you don't (!) it will take a little longer.

Peter Kump is the successor of Evelyn Wood, the founder of Speedreading. I have tried dozens of speed-reading courses, and they all have serious flaws. I tried another book which claimed to be "the best speed-reading course ever developed", but inside the author admitted that most people will only be able to read up to 800 words per minute at max. (I read at 600 wpm, so that wasn't much of a jump for me.)

Kump's book delivers in every way. It needs daily practice, but a maximum of fifteen minutes a day will get you soaring. Kump says it will not happen as fast as you want, but sooner than you expect. The book makes no fantastic claims, because it says slow progress in the beginning will lead to rapid speeds for EVERYONE. And it works, I, a college kid in New York, have read over 1,000 words per minute with Kump's at-home book.

He doesn't have gimmicks and more garbage to sell at the end. He doesn't make false promises. This is the only speed reading book to get and you will ever need. The others fall short. Kump has taught thousands and thousands, and he relates his classroom experience wonderfully. He reassures you with anecdotes of students who started out slow, but then soared at 2,000 words per minute. He humors you with stories of high school children finishing a chapter in two minutes when their teachers give the class twenty minutes of in-class reading time. When the student successfully answers all question, the teacher remarks that the student "must have read it before class". (He's only funny in a professorial way, not at all a comedian. He seems like he would be a serious, but helpful, teacher in class.)

It's also the cheapest out there. If you want to buy more than one book on speed-reading, I suggest you buy this one alone. I would be shocked if you felt you needed another one after going through this one. Just trying to save you money here. You can read my other reviews to test my biases. I know I sound like I'm like Peter Kump's son hawking daddy's book, but I like to give honest, passionate reviews. Live long and prosper.

This is the book for the skeptics. I researched several speed reading methods and doubted all of them. Mr. Kump's book seemed to make the least outlandish claims, so I chose to take a chance on it. It turns out that this is the best $20 I have ever spent! I am about to start a part-time MBA program at a prestigous university. I have a wife and two children and was desperate to try a technique that could improve the efficiency with which I learn. Now, I am so excited about starting my degree program, and so much of that is due to my completing this book. The book has taught me many simple techniques which have increased the speed of my reading, but much more important to me, is the fact that I now comprehend and recall much more of the info than I did in the past. I can now read technical material at three times the speed that I used to and my recall is far superior to what it used to be. No more having to read the same chapter 2, 3, or 4 times and no more "outlining" the entire thing in an attempt to remember everything. I cannot recommend this book enough. It takes work and effort to complete the exercises on a daily basis, but if you are serious you will find that the investment in time and energy will payoff many times over. It is my intention to teach this skill, it is a learned skill, to my children and I am trying to convince my wife to take the time to learn it also. Good luck and do not hesitate to try it. THANK YOU, PETER KUMP!

I ran across an older version of this book years ago at a public library. At the time I had seen a few infomercials on speed reading so I decided to see if I could find a book on it. I did the initial drill and I was reading at exactly 240 words a minute, which is the average rate for a college student according to the book's graph. I went through the book and within 3 weeks I was reading at a rate of over 800 words a minute. The drills are tremendous. However, I got lazy and started putting it off. Like an athlete if you don't work out (drill) you will lose the speed. Speed reading is something I really regreted not sticking with years ago and I'm glad they through out this new edition (hardly changed, just some internet references). Within 3 weeks I've broken 1000 words a minute and I feel like I could have gotten so much more if I drilled myself harder. I've tried out Evelyn Wood's book and a photo reading book, but by far I consider this one the best. When you first learn to read with your finger it might seem strange, however with time you'll notice the speed skyrocketing and it will feel uncomfortable when you don't use it.

As a college freshman, I had difficulty keeping up with the reading for all of my different classes. In the summer after that year, I purchased this book and benefitted greatly from it! This book teaches great techniques for taking effective notes on materials you read. After trying four or five other books, I found that this one was the only one which provided realistic answers on how to improve reading speed and comprehension. A must for any student!